When Gravity Fails

Ingrid’s death has hit me quite hard. Like a brick, in fact, and I cannot seem to grasp that she is gone.

My partner, Susan, has been a great comfort and we both have talked about how petty and insignificant our problems seem in comparison. Perspective is so hard-won, isn’t it?

It seems to me that Ingrid surely must still be here, that her death defies the laws of nature somehow, as though gravity had stopped working. Surely some mistake has been made, surely I have misunderstood and she is still alive, laughing and funny, unique and a little bit strange, warm and safe, and the keeper of our teenage memories.

It seems to me that Ingrid and I made each other what we are, or were, today. If she hadn’t been there, goodness only knows how long it would have taken me to come out. Perhaps all the energy that coming out would have required might have been stolen from the energy I put into journalism and I would never have succeeded at that as well as I did. Had Ingrid and I not come out together at such a young age, I might have gone in a completely different direction, less true to myself and the reality of my life.

Ingrid made me what I am today, in some very real sense, and I feel disconnected and untethered, like an astronaut floating in space after his jetpack has stopped working. I talk to her in my head all day long now, telling her how much I love her, how much I miss her, how much I needed her.

I don’t bargain with God, as I know many people do, because I don’t see God as intervening so much in our lives, but in these last days I have been begging for peace for her, for light and happiness and the best of all possible worlds for her. Oh, how I miss my sweet and funny friend.

--Caren Crockett