Sunday, January 15, 2017
The I Can't Believe It Day
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Mojo Moves On
Ingrid, another buddy is headed to you. Your sweet Mojo has passed away. He was the perfect poster boy for the animal adoption agency he came from in the Bay Area--and he was, in fact, their poster boy. Now he's back with you, Ingrid, and with Iggy Bob. I hope you are celebrating your time together again, pal.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
57, With Cake
It's hard to imagine you at 57, though to be honest, you didn't seem to get all that much older each year. Perhaps we see those we love through the lens of the youth we shared with them. Or perhaps you were just eternally cool, youthful, and oh-so-fabulous. Yeah, I think that was it. Even when you were being extremely uncool, you made it look cool. I always knew that if you liked something, the cool people would have to be working hard to catch up to you.
I miss you, old friend. Stay cool.
Monday, April 25, 2016
It's That Gay Day
The years are adding up, but it's still hard to believe how many it's been. And it's even harder to believe how lucky I was that I met you at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place, in exactly the right way. As though we could see each other from miles away. And though I wasn't particularly happy about moving to small-town Idaho, I got a whole lot happier about it when I met you. Such luck, such luck.
I'm off to be extremely gay somewhere, though what that means for a 54-year-old woman isn't clear. Probably wear something pink and be fabulous. Not as fabulous as you were without even trying, Ingrid, but I'll do my best in your honor.
Friday, January 15, 2016
Eight Years On
I walked around New York City today, thinking of you. Remember when we spent Thanksgiving break in 1979 in the city, eating gyros and cheesecake, and spotted Jodie Foster on the street? We were so wide-eyed about the big city, so happy to be exploring it together, so anxious to drink it all in. It was our first grown-up vacation together.
Things have changed a lot since that time, but what hasn't changed is how much I miss you, today and every day. I so wish you'd been with me today, seeing what I saw, from the crazy homeless guy whom I'm sure you would have talked to, to the lady with the scary fingernails who was on the subway, and everything in between.
Maybe I'll go have a gyro and some cheesecake in your honor, pal. Maybe I'll talk to a homeless guy and tell him you said hello.
I love you.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Happy 56, Ingrid
OK, I'll finally say it: I'll always be older than you. I know that if you can read that, you'll laugh in the way that I always laughed at you on your birthday for being older than I.
Your birthday is the only time I'm ever bothered by my age. It's against the natural order of things for me to be the older one. It's against the natural order of things for you to be gone.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
I Love This Day
Here's to being out--really, really, really out. Thanks to you, and thanks to me.
I miss you, Ingrid. But I'm glad I didn't have to wait until I was an adult before getting to be who I am. And I'm glad you didn't have to wait either.
I love you, pal. Happy our gay day.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
I Hate This Day
And every year on this day, I re-live the phone call that told me you were gone. Gone while I sat in an airport, waiting for my flight to see you. A trip that never happened, a hello and a goodbye that never happened.
There will be no goodbye to you. Once I said hello to you, a million years ago, all the goodbyes in the world could never stop that one hello.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
The Things That Don't Go Away
There are so many things that make me think of you, I don't believe I'll ever run out.
Today one of those things went away.
Damn, I miss you, pal. You'll never go away from me.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
And They Did
There is no way we would not have talked on the phone today, were you here.
This is me, calling you.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Ring Those Wedding Bells
And one of the women who sued? She's from Kuna.
You would have loved this moment.
I do.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Happy Birthday, Pal
Friday, April 25, 2014
Happy Our Gay Day, Ingrid!
Thank you, pal, for being there, for being half of what we were together, and most importantly, for being my friend all those years afterward. That first love we experienced together has lived in my heart all these years as the deepest sort of friendship. Thank you.
I miss you, Ingrid. So much. So much.
Love, Caren
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Six Years and Another Loss
It still happens, out of the blue, that I realize with shock that you are gone. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. I don't think I'll ever be used to it. It stinks that you don't get to be in the world and that the world doesn't get to know you now. That void doesn't grow smaller with time.
This year, there's another loss to mark. Your pal Iggy Bob, the cat that's in the photo at the top right of this page, finally joined you wherever you are. I hope you are both happy to see each other and thinking of nothing else.
I'm thinking of you. I'm missing you.
I love you, pal.
Friday, December 6, 2013
At the Intersection of Bitter and Sweet
When I'd read all I could, I thought to look at the site for the Kuna School District, and then the staff list, curious whether any of the teachers I'd once had were still around.
Though they were not, because I'm old and they're way older, there was the name of a former student, one of Ingrid's classmates. One who had been particularly awful to her back in the day. One who, when they met later at class reunions, she had come to like after all.
I was reminded of Ingrid's ability to evolve, of her big heart, of her unshakable ties to her home in Idaho and all that her home and family meant to her. Though she grew and changed mightily in the nearly 32 years I knew her, she also maintained that kernel of farm-kid-ness that was so essential to her. It was a pleasure to watch the changes and the lack of change, and a lesson for me.
I don't intend ever to return to that place. Ingrid's funeral was the last time for me. It's too hard now, knowing I have no one to talk to about it. But it will always be her home, and that's enough for me.
Wherever you are, Ingrid, I'm there.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Happy Birthday, Ingrid
I just talked to a friend who told me about a dream she'd had, and we agreed that you'd have made hay with it. Lesbians! Aliens! Lesbian aliens! We both laughed to think what you'd have done with her odd and funny dream. It surely would have been even more odd, even funnier, by the time you were through.
I miss your good and bright brain, Ingrid. You were so smart, so quick-witted. I miss my verbal sparring buddy.
Happy birthday, dear, sweet Ingrid. I hope you are celebrating, wherever you are. I love you.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Happy Gay Day, Ingrid
Here's to the high school darkroom where we shared our first kiss, where we said out loud to each other who we were, where we really started the process of growing up. Where we first said I love you.
And here's to you, Ingrid Wilhite, lesbian extraordinaire. I miss you, first love. I miss you, friend.
Hell, I even miss your damn accordion.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Five Years On
It's not just on this day that I re-live your loss. It's most days, but this one is the hardest. I so wish that the world still had you in it, that the people who already loved you still had you there, that those who never got to know you had had that chance. It's such a void, that space where you used to be. How many movies didn't get made, how many songs didn't get passed around to your friends, how many cool things never got your stamp of approval and thus made us all a little cooler thanks to you?
There were many times when you might have questioned your impact on other people. There were no times when your impact was less than huge. You were just that sort of person: the standout.
I sure wish you were standing beside me, beside all of us, right now. God damn it, how I hate that you are never, ever coming back.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Some Days
Friday, May 4, 2012
Happy Sad Birthday
It's that happy sad day again, Ingrid. Happy birthday, pal, at 53 but 48. I never wanted to catch up to you, ever, and now here we are and I am older than you will ever be.
Last night at midnight, as I thought about how it had just become your birthday, The Rocky Horror Picture Show came on the TV and you know I had to at least watch the first part of that. You took me to that movie for the first time when we were teenagers, and for a million times after that until we both could quote all the dialogue and knew when to duck as the toast flew and the water pistols came out. It was the gayest, most miraculous thing I'd ever seen up to that point, and it was all because of you. And so I sat on my living room floor at midnight and laughed and cried for you, Ingrid. And missed you so much it felt as though my insides were roiling.
And then I laughed again. You were right there with me in that moment. Thank you for that, Ingrid. I love you.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Big 3-5
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.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Time, Loss
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
Friday, January 13, 2012
Four Years and a Lifetime
--Amy Rubin
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Happy Birthday, evermore
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.
Monday, April 25, 2011
And Another Gay Year Ends and Starts
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.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Trail's End
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.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
One Sad 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.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Where's the Beef?
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.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Happy Birthday to You
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.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Happy Anniversary, Ingrid
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.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Cows Well Done
I hope you heard me laughing for you, Ingrid.