I’m not known to be a particularly private person.  I typically have no problem finding the words and sharing them.  But every once in a while, something happens causing such surprise and cuts so deeply, that it empties me of words.  And empty of the capacity to process it.  This last week has been agonizing and left me despondent. The first couple days, it was ungraspable. I think that may have been the actual first time I had to turn off and away from my Facebook.  When I think I’m cried out, I am reminded again by the simplest of things, a train whistle, my backyard, an old memory, plans we were making but didn’t make it to.  I had a dream about her just after she passed, she was alive and well and laughing to me that it was all a mistake, she’s fully alive.  She’s not here anymore and it doesn’t feel real.

Gosh Bonnie was one of the coolest women I ever had the privilege to know.  We bonded over our job, our kids and our mutual predicaments.  We shared a divorce attorney and occasionally my mom.  Oh she loved my mom, and how my mom loved her, she was our “Moms”:  “Where’s Moms?  What’s Cyd doing?”  She was such a kindred spirit. We worked the same day shift every week for a few years and would often be cut around the same time, and then it was our happy hour date – holing up in the corner for lunch, making brew snowmen on the patio, heading over to Overboard for our afternoon matinee movie, getting annoyingly giggly and loud together.  Her laugh echoes in my ears, still.  Like so many others likely feel, such vibrant, smiling memories were made with her.  I can’t pick my kids up from school, sit in my driveway or in my backyard without feeling an ache of her absence.  How will I ever run into or read updates from County Commissioner Joe Atkins and not start crying?  I was hearing trains this last weekend outside, and they kept making me feel sad and would remind me of her.  I laughed to myself, yeah, she’d probably love to plant that seed to haunt me.

Yesterday was hard.  I finally got to hug her kids, which was the very first thing I needed after getting the call with the news.  It was a long wait.  They say funerals are for the living to say goodbye.  I wasn’t saying goodbye, it didn’t feel like goodbye, it didn’t feel real.  Her foster mom I often heard about happened to sit next to me.  We shared our relationship we each had with her, I got to hear about teenage Bonnie, she got to hear (to her surprise and pride) about PTO Mom Bonnie.  I looked around the room.  There were the school’s teachers, familiar friends from so many different parts of the community, fellow school PTO mom, family, co-workers – a whole section of coworkers.  She was a part my life in so many different ways.  A dependable, big-hearted, life-giving constant in an uncertain world.  My mom looked at me and said “If she knew all the people that are in this room for her right now,” and you know what my head immediately thought?  “Right? I know I have to tell her, I should text her!”   

I can’t shake this tremendous guilt and sorrow I feel.  For reasons I’ll dwell on despite everyone’s assurances and kind words.  I found a note she left me once that said “You’re a great friend! You can always call or text me anytime!”  Did I tell her that enough?  Did she really know the same was true for her?  I also had recently saved a message I received from her that I will hold onto forever that said “Maybe I’m a little fanboy, but the way you took your grief and experience and turned it into something is so inspiring! You’re a fucking business woman now Amy! Look at you, boss!”  All the stupid times she told me she looks up to the way I do this or that.  Did I tell her enough how much I admired her? Did I fangirl her enough for her to know I continually impressed I was by her?  Afraid of nothing, floor-installing, family road-trip planning, alternator-installing, fun-loving, puppy-raising, hard-working, home-owning, art-volunteering, loud-laughing, crazy earring-wearing, concert and hiking junkie, who deeply loved and valued her friends, family and most of all her kids.  She was so many amazing things to so many people, did I tell her that enough?

She had a tough life, but she was a tough woman who never let it limit her, hardened her or minimize who she was.  She took grief and experience and turned it into loving others.  She was an inspiring woman.  There’s a lot of life-lessons I’m going to take with me after learning from her.  I feel so privileged to have been her friend.  And I’m going to miss her so damn much.