After I wrote that seriously cleansing post yesterday I decided to go outside with the boys and get some sun. I have this habit of going outside when I want to be uplifted, it is something that I only started doing when we moved up here and is because there is something magical about this little place we have found. I dried my frustrated tears, went outside and headed with the boys down to the rosemary and tarragon fields. In moments like these there is always something that lifts me up, I am never sure if it is a sign from my friend Kathy that I mentioned, my aunt who passed from ALS a few years ago, the spirit from the lady who ran this farm, or anyone else for that matter.
Yesterday, a monarch butterfly.
It flew around us making sure it was known. This was most surely sent from Kathy as she was still very much on my mind. Butterflies are her thing. I started thinking how I was so surprised that I would think of her in that post yesterday and in general. How it can still be so many years and some days I just really miss her.
Kathy died at what we thought was the height of her life. She had just turned 21. She wanted to go to B-Man so bad (I normally wouldn't abbreviate anything but there was a lot of junk surrounding her death and I don't want anyone to find this blog by googling that "August-week long celebration in the Nevada desert"...you get the idea for what festival I am referring to). She went by herself, all of her close friends stayed back here. She was a talented photographer, made it to almost the end of the festival. Then she suffered a terrible accident while trying to get a closer look at a temple she wanted to get a picture of.
All of our friends and me included went through a lot when she died. It was really hard having someone die who you love but their death is permanently attached to such a famous festival. When you tell people how she went and they say, oh! I was there that year/I met one of the paramedics who worked on her/I met someone on the bus who had her scarf...blah blah blah.
Then that week comes and you are living in the Bay Area and there are legions of cars so proud to show off their playa dust. I am fascinated by that dust. Her stuff came back covered in it. It is so otherworldy, and seeing it on cars is such a bittersweet reminder.
I guess I just want to remember her today. It can be such a minefield when you lose a friend and there are all of these close friends involved who are grieving in such vastly different ways. I learned very quickly who I could talk to about the signs I would see or the dreams I would have. I learned who wanted to celebrate her life or talk about how this all sucked so bad and she should be there with us getting married and having babies and taking shots of tequila on New Year's Eve. I learned who didn't want to talk about it, who would rather keep quiet.
Her long time boyfriend/fiance really took it hard. I tried to be there for him after she passed as much as I could, I sent cards for months, I called to just see how he was, I sent little gifts. Then I couldn't do it anymore, I needed to grieve myself. I was always worried he didn't think I had kept that up long enough. We have recently reconnected and he was visiting us with our other best friends on New Years. Almost 6 years and with me and my best friend there he started crying, worried he had missed his chance with who was supposed to be his wife. We tried to soothe him and tell him, no, there was someone out there for him. It is still so damn hard sometimes and the hardest part is we didn't know the answer for him.
What I was thinking about yesterday was how I am 2 people, and it isn't "before kids" and "after kids" like I thought it was. It is "before death touched my life" and "after". I hope that doesn't sound morbid to anyone reading this. I always have had a thing for Day of the Dead and my beliefs on death pretty closely mirror that, celebrating life. Death as a passage to something. A passage that sometimes I can take and sometimes I want to revoke, preferring to have my talented friend here with us instead of sending signs.
Before her death touched my life and touch is a mild word (I would probably use something more vivid if I could think of just the right word) I can't remember exactly who I was. Probably happily unaware that life is so tenuous. If I try really hard I can imagine that Diana, skipping along, hoop earrings and a long brown ponytail, cool jeans, a white tank top, beers and music in SF bars, doing way too much partying, being way too hard on herself and seriously lacking direction. Kathy's death saved me from heading down a slippery slope. Now I look in the mirror and I see me, weary from a different kind of all nighter, much more peaceful, always with the taste of death in the back of my throat but knowing there is not a thing I can do about it. Loving and crying all in one breath, even crying because of beauty sometimes.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to have her back. One day, grabbing coffee and catching up before she had to head back to wherever she is. I am thankful for how her death shaped me but no one ever wants to be shaped that way, baptism by fire. I would much rather have her here, taking pictures of my family, she was such a talented photographer. Instead, I am learning how to take pictures myself.
Almost 6 years later and I still think of her so often. Other people close to me have passed but she was so young that it is much harder. Thank you to the universe for allowing me to remember her this morning.
I want to include some of the pictures she took at B-Man that we got from her camera that came back with her stuff. Also, a picture of me and her (she is on the left). The very last picture is a picture of her at the festival and she is in the red.
Now, on to the day. Whatever it brings.
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