The Big 3-5

It's 35 years ago today that we came out, Ingrid. I'll never forget it, but that seems a silly thing to say. I suppose what I'm really saying is that I'll never forget you and your gay, gay, gay self.

Thanks, Ingrid, for your honesty and bravery. And for how you helped me be honest and brave, too. And for how you let me help you be the same. I suspect we were the first kids to come out in Kuna, Idaho, and survive the experience. Hell, thrive on the experience and become big ol' lesbians. How cool is that, Ingrid?

Happy Ingrid and Caren Coming Out Day, pal. I love you.

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

Happy Birthday, evermore

Today is your day, kiddo. 52 and counting, but still just 48. It will never be OK that you are not here, Ingrid.

When I think back on all the years and all the months and all the days we knew each other, I can't help but think I'll never meet anyone as important to me as you were. As you are.

Maybe that's the nature of things when you meet young, go through the big milestones together, mark the years together. I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm angry as hell you aren't here, pal. I never stop wishing you could just... come back.

I love you, old girl. Happy birthday.

And Another Gay Year Ends and Starts

Hi Ingrid,

It's the 34th anniversary of the day we came out. I look forward to this day every year, grateful that I know the date, that I can pin down when my adult future really started. And yours.

Thirty-four years and one day ago you and I did the March of Dimes Walk-a-thon and spent 20 miles talking around and around our feelings. Then the next day, we couldn't hold back any longer and finally became the lesbians we were always destined to be.

How thankful I am for you, Ingrid. So thankful. Not only did we get to come out in a fairly painless manner, but even better, we got to come out into love.

I hope you can feel how much I love you still, friend. That will never change.

Trail's End

For more than a while now I have been struggling to put into words the keen sense of loss I still feel over Ingrid's death. Just now I was reading the comments on a story about whether it's selfish to have a second child so your first child will have a pal, and I came across this phrase: "someone to walk through the world sharing a common history with."

Now aside from how weird it is that I was reading anything about having children, that is a version of what Ingrid meant to me. Because we knew each other so young, and for so long, it felt as though we had an almost-common history and that we'd been walking through the world, indelibly connected, for a long time. I took it for granted that we'd be old ladies together. We talked about it, joked about it, described it to each other.

And now my old-lady walking pal is gone. And nobody else gets to walk through the world with her either. I think it sucks for all of us.

That about sums it up.

One Sad Day

It's that worst day again, Ingrid. Three years since you died. I've been avoiding writing this all day.

Even this long out, it's hard to accept that you're gone. I still think, "Oh, I'll just ask Ingrid." And then snap back to reality and remember that I can't do that.

I think acceptance is a very slow process, Ingrid, that happens to a lot of small corners and nooks in the mind. And since you occupy a lot of those spaces I'm not exactly aching for acceptance, I guess.

I still just miss you.

Where's the Beef?

Captain Beefheart died today. Ingrid would have been touched by that. She loved Captain Beefheart and all that sort of stuff in high school (and beyond...) and might have called me to make sure I knew that he'd passed away.

I would have teased her, she would have laughed, I would have laughed. It would have been another of the million moments in our friendship; inconsequential on its face, but part of a tapestry of silly and serious things that spanned the years and bolstered our shared past.

I wish I could call her to tell her.

Happy Birthday to You

All right, pal, today is your birthday and I'm still here.

I hope that wherever you are, it's the best place ever. That a giant cake that keeps changing flavors and getting better and better is alight with candles and that you're blowing them out and laughing, then starting all over again. That you've got a cat on your lap and every good person you ever met all around you. And that a shiny new bike that fits you perfectly is right next to you with a huge bow on it while all your favorite music plays and plays.

I miss you so much, Ingrid, and it never goes away. I hope that you can feel it, in a good way, and that you know there are a whole lot of people here thinking of you.

I can't help but think of your mom and how she might feel today. She must miss her girl with all her being. I know I do.

Happy birthday, pal. I don't know how to stop missing you.

Happy Anniversary, Ingrid

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the day we came out to each other, Ingrid. I used to call you on this day and we'd reminisce. I wish I could call you today.

Thank you for helping to make my life and for letting me help to make yours.

The whole thing still amazes me all these years later. Two kids, such bravery, so young. Thank you, thank you.

I miss you so.

Cows Well Done

Maybe it's finally happening, that mystical place where the warm memory overwhelms the sharp pain. At least today it is, watching the Cows With Guns video. If you don't think of Ingrid then and laugh, you're probably not breathing.

I hope you heard me laughing for you, Ingrid.

Looking Away

Today is the second anniversary of Ingrid's death. I remember her as though she were here with me right now.

Remember that funny look she'd use when she was simultaneously confused and incredulous? A little bug-eyed, with her mouth turned in a squiggle? I'm not very good at describing it, but if you knew her, you'll know what I mean.

Well, that's the look I see on her face right now. The look I think of as "classic Ingrid," the look I'd never seen on anyone else's face and still never have.

I miss your funny looks, Ingrid. I miss you. I still want you back. I always will.

Rest well.

Dreading Time

The anniversary of Ingrid's death is coming up again, and I still can't believe it. How can it be two years? How can it be at all?

Come back, Ingrid. Come back. I still miss you so much.

Just yesterday I thought of something from our youth and thought, I'll call Ingrid and ask her if she remembers. But of course I can't do that.

Once again I am reminded: Life is not fair. Not even a little bit.

Damn it to hell.

Making Do

I am sitting here, trying to wake up after a very late night of flat-out work, staring at the TV. And who comes on but Ute Lemper, yet another singer Ingrid tried to persuade me to like. And I'm watching it, and listening, because I know that Ingrid would have.

God, I wish you were here to watch it, too, Ingrid. I'd listen to any kind of music for any length of time, just to have the chance to see you once more, just to see you enjoying something you loved. But Ute Lemper will have to do.

Sigh.

Moving On, Not

Now that I've decided to move back to the US, at least part-time, I find that I'm more tortured than ever about not making it back in time to see Ingrid one last time. None of us could have known how fast things would be, how fragile she really was. But that doesn't make it any easier.

I'm sorry, Ingrid. I didn't know that 17 days would be too many.

You Need to Know

Lately I've been working Ingrid into my conversations more often, I notice. Last week at the OutGames, talking to a graphic design prof from New York who had once been in the film business; today with the woman who is redesigning my business cards... I'll take any tangential opportunity, it seems, to make sure people know who Ingrid was because now they don't have the chance to know for themselves.

Here's my broken record for the day, Ingrid: I miss you, I love you, I cannot let you go.

Listen up, world: Ingrid was amazing.

Ode an die Freude

I listen to Ode to Joy all the time now, Ingrid, just because it reminds me of you. I remember how you hated your middle name, and I've come to love it.

Joy.

Yeah, that was you, pal.

Happy Birthday, Ingrid

Happy 50th birthday, Ingrid.

I want to be on the phone with you right now, making some very bad joke about how old you are, about how you're in your fifties, for crying out loud, while I am still a young and supple 40something.

And, of course, as always, I want to remind you that you will always be older than I. Damn, but I still want that to be very, very true.

Instead, this is the year we catch up to each other, the year we are both 48.

I hope that you are fat and happy on cake, Ingrid, and that your only worry is which of your thousand favorite bike rides to take. Because in heaven, you get to have more than one favorite.

Happy birthday. I miss you.

A Million Other Things

You know, Ingrid, you have a powerful influence. And not one I always like, pal... Suddenly I'm totally into a girl band from France? France? Seriously?

Don't think I can't hear you laughing as usual. And don't think I can't hear Edith Piaf singing in the background, after three decades of claiming not to like her just so I could tease you about it. You and I could hold a joke between us forever.

With your voracious musical lust, you'd have known about the girl band years ago. By now you'd have already championed, obsessed over, vaguely lost interest in, and archived all their music, knowing there'd be just the right moment one day to use it for a video or commercial or gig or party or God knows what. And when you did, it would be just right. Touching or hilarious or ironic or a million other things. Like you.

Because you were just what you needed to be, pal.

A Day, A Year, A Life

Today is the first anniversary of Ingrid's death. Maybe, like a lot of new things, it takes some getting used to. Because I'm not used to it yet no matter how much acceptance I want to cultivate.

Ingrid... who can think of her and fail to smile, to hear her laughter, to remember her warmth? Surely she was one of the funniest people on the planet. She could make you hoot and holler at the stupidest stuff, things no one else could raise a chuckle for. For crying out loud, I don't even have to remember her older than 17 or so to smile. I'm still laughing about the S&Ms and the gorilla socks and the nights making out under the stars and a thousand other juvenile, teenage things. And that was just the girl. The woman was even more amazing. Was there anyone more committed to laughter and love?

How can it be one year that she is gone? How can it even be one day, damn it? How? Bring her back, make it untrue, stop screwing around, God. This is how it feels today. And this is how it feels every day, in the little corners where you keep the things you know aren't true.

So it's a mixed bag, at best. Acceptance, grief, humor, love. In the end, maybe that's what gets us through the night and the day and the one year and all the rest. I hope so, because I miss you, Ingrid Joy Wilhite, with a fierceness and rage that I cannot shake. And I feel you with a warmth and love that I cannot deny.

I miss you, Ingrid. I miss you. I miss you.

--Caren Crockett