Bereft of friendship, we will continue to struggle on without you…
I got to work today like I usually do – ten to fifteen minutes early. I hadn’t heard the news yet. I didn’t know about you.
Going up to the building, the sun shining down in my eyes, blinding me with its autumnal gold, blazing into my brain, searing the nerve endings there…B. beside me, A. to the other side.
I didn’t hear what B. said at first…either that or my brain didn’t want to hear it. Denied the existence of truth. Nullified it with a ‘What?’. I wish the question hadn’t popped, slack-jawed and hurt from my mouth like that…eyes widening as the sun lowered in the sky towards its death…so like that thing that I didn’t hear.
B – You haven’t seen the news?
Me – What news?
B – Deirdre…
A – Yeah, you haven’t heard?
Me – What?
B – Deirdre’s dead.
Me – What?!
B – Murdered by ..
A – her boyfriend
B – her husband
B – Whichever
A – yeah
B – He ran her off the road. She’d gone to pick up her son and he ran her off and killed her.
A – Yeah, Dave told us about it yesterday.
B – I forgot, you weren’t here.
Me – She’s dead?
B – Yeah
Me – you’re shitting me
B – no, she’s dead – murdered. It’s all over the news…Dave told us.
Me – Oh my God…
B – yeah.
a – yeah…
That’s how I learned you were dead…killed at the hands of a man that should have loved you, your son left without a mother, your parents without a daughter, and you, lying there dead…I’m wishing I had seen something, known something, to tell you….It’s all happened too fast when I was busy getting ready for life…where did you go?
Me – Did they catch…
B – No. I don’t think so. They were looking for him last I heard.
Me – I hope they fry the motherfucker.
B – …
I didn’t know you well enough to call you close, but I knew you…I knew you were a good woman, with a beautiful spirit. A woman who would open her heart and help anyone. An African Queen in a village that didn’t deserve you or understand who you were. I’m so sorry that we didn’t get the moments together for me to call you close…but I can surely call you friend…I can surely do that.
Deirdre, I will miss you, as so many will…and I pray that you are in the arms of a Father who will not let any more hurt come to you. It’s for those of us left behind that I sing this sad song, and for the undeserved ending that you got – the story ended too soon, the thread cut before it was time…at least to us.
We Love you…
we miss you.
S
This ends up being the point where I do most of my rambling. Sometimes it's good, most times it's not. As far as I go, I'm a 30-something husband, father, friend, geek...everything else you want to know about me and everything else you don't is contained right here in these pages.
~Swift