Time, Loss

Ingrid, I've been missing you for years now and it never makes a difference. I don't think it ever will. The space you left behind four years ago today is shaped exactly like you, so it's a space no one else can fill. It's like those life-size drawings that kids make in elementary school--giant, outlandish, colorful, true.

Who will ever be so funny, so serious, so brave, so fearful? Who will ever create something that had never existed before from nothing, from something, from less than nothing? Who will ever remember that thing we did that time in that place we went? Who will ever speak that shorthand of friendship born in such a formative time, a lifetime ago? No one but you, Ingrid.

I hope you don't even notice this horrible day, the fourth anniversary of your death. I hope you've moved so far beyond it all that only the music and the stars and the friendship remain. And I hope the same for myself.

Someday.

Love, Caren

Four Years and a Lifetime

Four years. Four years since I heard you laugh at one of my stupid jokes. Four years since I ordered those “I Love Cows” and “The Coolest People Are from Kuna, Idaho” hats for when you were supposed to lose your hair that I never sent you because they arrived the day after you died. You would have worn them proudly. Four years since we said I love you, not knowing that it would be our last chance to tell each other out loud what we felt for almost thirty years. Four years since I told myself (and Caren) that I would not post anything on this blog because my feelings were too private and it was too painful and, anyway, everyone who knows me knows how I feel about you. Well, times and convictions change and here I am. Four years. Wow. I think about you every day, especially when walking alone listening to music and a Carpenters song comes on. I know your love and knowledge of music was as vast as your gigantic CD collection and went way beyond the 70s, but you are most vivid to me when I hear the Carpenters or Abba, music that we shared way back when. You affected my life in many positive ways and I will always be grateful. I miss you, old pal.

--Amy Rubin