I had a talk with Bonnie today.
It is the anniversary of her death..and I have been in conflict this year. I don’t want to grieve anymore. That sounds kinda insensitive, so let me explain. On her death bed she was emotional one day because she did not want to be defined by her disease. She felt like she had lived thirty years that everyone had forgotten and now she was just a girl with cancer. I am ashamed that I have let her disease, her death, consume me over these last three years. In remembering her death everyday..I have lost some of the impact of her LIFE. I have lost the CRAZY, fun times. I think of her and want to cry more than I want to laugh. The LOSS has had a life of it’s own. But the TRUTH is she laughed. All. The. Time. The reason the loss is so HUGE is because of all the FUN we had..not because she died with cancer in ninety days. I grieve because she was my friend. Because of all we had in common..and all that was different, but that made me grow. What she was in LIFE is far larger than the crushing impact of those last 90 days. But they WERE crushing. Unforgettable. Unimaginable. But this year I want to remember late, late nights drinking Sangria and laughing. I want to remember a friend that could make me laugh until I wet myself..and one who could hack me off so bad that I could have killed her myself. I want to remember that she woke up with “Don King hair”..which I thought must be an exaggeration until I saw it for myself. I want to remember that she is the only person I know who tried to save people as much as I do..even when it is ill advised. We laughed about it. A lot.
True story..January 25th before the June she was diagnosed..my brother asked me to be the designated driver for his 30th bday party. First you should know..Travis and I are polar opposites..he and Bonnie had much more in common than he and I. But I love him bigger than life. So I agreed. I deliver him and one of his friends to an almost dive bar in Hixson and me, Bonnie and Lisa go to the Outback for dinner. When we come back everyone is loaded. I love my brother. Every second of every day. But he is a horse’s patoot when he is drunk. I am just trying to lay low and not point this out..which would lead to a sibling war..while Bonnie on the other hand..is buying everyone tequila shots. I become distracted because in a pool hall, in Hixson, TN..some cat..a GUY starts to do a lap dance for a birthday party. No joke. This absolutely happened. This guy strips all the way down to his tighty whitees right there in the bar. It was like a train wreck..I could not look away from this pasty, white, scary, skinny white guy dancing with all the confidence of a Chippendale IN A POOL HALL. Bon, Lisa and I were riveted..NEVER, before or after have I seen anything like this. About this time I get struck with IBS. Cheese fries at Outback..not a good idea. I would rather go to the bathroom in the bushes than in a bar. Fact. So me and my gals rush the less than five minutes home. And then OF COURSE we sit in the den and chit chat for maybe an hour. We are almost back to the bar when my brother calls..frantic…HE thinks I am still at the bar..he is not. He is rushing to the emergency room with a friend who has had a seizure. The friend I had picked up and delivered to the bar so I feel responsible. He tells me to go back to the bar and wait. So we talk to the friends still there and find out this cat has drank too much “some crazy blonde chick was buying tequila” and heckling anyone that couldn’t shoot it..and the friend had “went to sleep” on the bar stool and had fallen off. Ok..this should stop here..and if anyone but Bon and I had been involved it probably would have..but NO. Trav’s friends pick the kid up and put him BACK ON the bar stool. Where he of course falls again. The THIRD time they put him back on the stool and he falls off, he hits his head, and goes into seizures. Apparently my brother was off hitting on some girl (no doubt with the “Hi, I’m Dr. Gann” line..or maybe it was the “Hi..I am handsome Charlie Gann” line)..either way..he didn’t take note until disaster has struck. Let me say this about my brother. He is extraordinarily intelligent..although one can not deem this from his pick-up lines..but he is NOT the person to have in a medical emergency. He is smart enough to get you help..but he panics like crazy. So we go to the hospital. When we get there Lisa, Bonnie and I are loudly talking..well, not Lisa..she speaks in a normal voice..Bon and I are LOUD. She announces that this is entirely my fault because I wouldn’t crap in the bar like a normal human being. The waiting room is rolling..because it is a weekend night..and everyone is bored and OF COURSE we have to tell the stripper story..the IBS story..the Angie is crazy OCD story..and the Bonnie bought too much tequila story to everyone, and of course the “my brother’s friends put this kid on a bar stool THREE times” story. They loved us. Life to a dead room. Travis comes out..he is belligerent..crazy..NOT acting like how we were raised to act. The front desk tells me they are about to call the police on him..he says he wants to be with his buddy..Bonnie literally picks him up and THROWS him in the back of my car and we take him home. On the way he tells us they have really been mean to his buddy..that said buddy has white coat syndrome and woke up scared and they threw Travis out and wouldn’t let him calm the guy down. That is what had him belligerent. I don’t know if this is true..but in the meantime I have called the boy’s parents and have called a physician who is a personal friend to check on what is going on. Bonnie and I go back to the hospital and wait with the boy’s parents. My buddy, the doctor comes out and ushers us to the parking lot. The ER Dr. has said that “no one sober was with him”..despite all three of us girls are stick sober..and said they had to restrain him. Turns out Travis was right..they WERE mistreating his friend. They bring him in unconscious..when he wakes up screaming..petrified because the last thing he remembers is having drinks with his friends..and no one knew he had a REAL phobia of hospitals. Instead of following protocol and giving this guy..not a big guy by the way..”chemical restraints”..they strap him to a gurney, which just made him fight harder, and have the cops TASER him. Yep..you read that right. Drunk guy..normally THE nicest, most polite guy in the world..and this ER doc’s solution is to Taser him. It sends him into a cardiac episode that could have killed him. True story. Had I known this was going on..my parents could have bailed BOTH their kids out of jail because I would have been back there too. Well, Guess what..once the cops taser someone they have to take them to jail..so they take this poor cat to jail..in his hospital gown!!!! TRUE STORY. I want to say this is an isolated incident..but the truth is..Bonnie and I found ourselves in the CRAZIEST situations..not sure what this says about us! She and I part ways and she calls a buddy to tell him the story. She calls me when she hangs up with him to tell me to leave the part about the stripper out. Why?? I asked. “Because” she says..”I have tested this story on a trial audience and they told me that they believed me right up to the part about the stripper..so we need to leave the part about the stripper out or NO ONE will believe this night happened!!!” At the time we were BOTH traumatized..I was especially because I have worked with Drs. my entire adult life and you do NOT take someone to the hospital to get tasered because an ER Dr. can’t handle a weekend drunk. At the time I was mortified. Now I laugh when I think about that night. Make no mistake, I am STILL mortified that it happened, but it was the last CRAZY night she and I had together..and I can still hear her saying..”leave the part about the stripper out.” and laughing.
Something else Bonnie and I had in common..OMG all of our stories are play by play..we aren’t into cliff notes! So for those two people still with me..this was what happened today. I go to the cemetery and because there are gravediggers on the hill behind me and I am having a hard time sitting on the ground pregnant..I lay down..hands behind my head..talking to the sky. I am telling her all the things you would expect. I love you..I miss you..it isn’t fair..this wasn’t suppose to happen..and then in a poignant moment I tell her I am afraid. I am afraid that I am always going to let the GRIEF, the pain, the memories of those last days shatter my memories of the YEARS that came before those ninety days..that I am afraid that I will always remember the swelling, the pain, the jaundice, the grief of a mother watching her child die..but that I will forget her laugh..when at that moment..a GUST of wind comes and lifts my dress clean up to my navel. Granny panties shining in all their glory. And I heard her laugh. And I laughed too. I know she wasn’t there. I know I didn’t REALLY hear her laugh..but in that instant I remembered her laugh. It sounded like crystal tinkling..and I found peace with this day.
I love you Bon..and I know that somewhere that I can’t see or hear yet, that you were laughing with me..and I remembered not watching you die..but riding shot gun in your life. And that my friend..was one of the best gifts God has ever given me. So cheers to you tonight. To love and laughter. To friends who will love you even when you are wrong. To those few friends in life that will carry you when you are too weak to stand. To Sangria and dive bars..and to a gust of wind that reminded me that you will always be with me.
