I will remember you...

People say you never forget your first.  Todd was my first.  He was the first boy to tell me he loved me.  He was the first boy to break my heart into a million little pieces.  I was 17.  He was 19.  We'd met through my friend Lori's older brother, Paul.  Todd and Paul hung out together. The two of us met at Lori & Paul's house. Both Lori & Paul had a few friends in while their parents were away.  We took a shine to each other that night, and began dating that week.  I was in my final year of high school and I was so excited to have a boyfriend that I would be able to take to the prom with me.  I ordered my grad ring that year, and opted for the one with the stone inside.  Most who chose the stone ordered the ruby stone, since our school colours were red and white.  I, on the other hand, ordered the bright blue stone.  The stone closest to the colour of Todd's eyes (I kid you not).  Unfortunately, Todd had a wandering eye, and he let it wander when he was still dating me, and that ultimately led to our parting.  I took him back briefly, but as I couldn't trust him, it didn't last very long the second time.  I ended up going to the prom with a boy that I didn't know.  After my 'back up' date fell through very close to the prom date, my father set me up to go with a boy that worked in his office. Dad thought he was a nice kid.  It was late in the year, and everyone else had been asked, and I sure didn't want to go alone.  I actually considered asking Todd to take me, even for old time sake, but at the time, he was involved with another girl.

Life carried on.  I had several more heartbreaks thereafter, learning something from each one.  I ran into Todd a few times in between, and each time there was always something in his eye...something that told me that he still cared... neither of us let it go any further than that though.  Jump ahead 20 years, Todd found himself married with kids.  We reconnected again via Facebook, but didn't see each other again in person until just before Christmas last year.  I ran into him at Home Hardware.  He was there waiting for his brother to go to lunch.  A brother he just found out he had.  He was so happy to have found him. We talked that day for a really long time.  We remininsced.  He had a few health problems that he had alluded to. No details, aside from the fact that he commented that he felt it was life's way of getting back at him for treating some people in his life (like me) so badly.  We parted, smiling and shared a hug. I was happy for him  that he had a good family and home.  I was happy for me, too, being in a steady, mutually satisfying relationship.  Life had gone on. I no longer remembered the 'bad times' or the hurt that Todd caused. We were friends, and that felt good.

***
Last week, I got a message from Lori. She was sharing some news about Todd.  He had been sent to the hospital in Halifax.  He was unconscious, and the outlook, grim.  Not usually one for praying, I prayed that day.  I prayed that he'd recover.  I prayed for his young family.  That message arrived on Thursday.  On Saturday, a further message had arrived advising me that the doctors were giving him 2 days. I was floored.  In shock.  How could this be happening?  On Monday, a further note arrived to let me know that they were taking him off life support that day.  Within a few more hours, he was gone. 

He was 41 years old.  He left behind a wife, and 4 kids, 18 years, 7 years, 4 years and 1 year.  He stayed home with those kids after some health problems prevented him from working outside the house. Daddy being home is all those young kids know.  Now Daddy is not there.  They're too young to comprehend what has happened.  They're undoubtedly calling out for him.  The youngest won't even remember him.  I'm just crushed thinking about it.  How will his family ever get over this?  No parent should ever have to bury their own child.  No son or daughter should grow up without knowing his or her father.

I'm so sad.

You broke my heart once before Todd, and now, my heart is broken again.  I cry for a life lost much, much too soon.  I cry for your wife. Your loss will be unbearable for her. I cry for your children. Tyler had an opportunity to know you as a wonderful father, and your loss will be a void that will never ever be filled for him.  Jock, Sadie and Willa are still so young...they will cry out for you.  They will not understand why you aren't in the room anymore.  Jock will remember you, but the memories will be so distant.  Sadie and Willa may not be able to hang on to any early memories at all.  Watch out for them...

Rest in peace, my dear friend.  Thank you for the memories you have given me. I will never, ever, forget you.

~ A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.
Gustave Flaubert

75

You would have been 75 years young today, Dad.  Every year, the weeks leading up to your birthday make the ache in my heart a little stronger.  I hope there's a party going on right now in Heaven to celebrate the amazing person that you were.  You were nothing short of wonderful to me.  You taught me so much.  I owe so much to you.... Thank you for guiding me, and shaping me into the person that I am today.  I hope I made you proud.

Since memories fade, and they're all I have of you now, I wanted to recount a few more here, in celebration of you, on your special day:

-sitting on your lap with a bowl of Bits & Bites.  I never liked the cheese cracker bits, so I'd give them to you, and you'd suck them up like a vacuum, and I'd giggle every time.
-surprising me one winter day by coming to my kindergarten class and asking Mrs. MacRae to let me out early so we could go on a 'date'.  We headed to the Rideau Canal where the ice sculptures were. Winterlude was over, and it was just the two of us and your camera.  I have to go find those pictures.  I don't think you're in any of them, sadly.
-the scent of your cologne and the shine of your face after a bath and a fresh shave.  I'd come home from work or being out, to greet you in your chair in the living room, and bend over to kiss your forehead from above.  The smell wasn't overpowering (though sometimes I wonder how it wasn't, being Aqua Velva or Brut, and all!), it was comforting.  The lighthouse blanket used to smell like you.  It doesn't anymore :(.
-those crazy eyebrows of yours.  They stayed so black while your hair went so grey.  Every now and then there'd be a rogue hair that was stuck way out of place and I'd pluck it. You never complained.
-some girls might have thought it weird that their father would ask them to shave their neck.  I didn't mind it though.  I don't think I ever cut you once.  Even with that ancient old razor you used with the Wilkinson Sword blades.
-You must have been a very hard worker - immersing yourself completely in your job at the office. On more than one occasion you started small talk with me as I called your office after waiting impatiently for you to pick me up out front of Main building.  It would go something like this:  you: "Head Material Control Officer, Fred Manuel"...me: "Hi Dad..."....you: "Oh hi Amber, how's it going today?"... me: "Um...aren't your forgetting something??".....you: "Oh! Shit! I'm sorry! I'll be right there!".  You'd look like the cat that swallowed the canary when you got there.
-your smile.  Your eyes twinkled, and you commanded a room (Mom always said it was your Navy arrogance).  Everyone who met you, loved you.
-your hugs.  The biggest, warmest bear hugs ever.  You'd squeeze so tight and hang on just a little longer than most.

God I miss you.................

Thinking of Corey

I remember getting the call that day...the day I'd found out you'd lost your struggle.  Finally, your pain was over, yet, ours was just beginning.  Ironically, I had already been in a sad place, because it was the day after the anniversary of Dad's death just 2 short years prior.  I refused then to say good-bye to you, and I still do.  Because you're not gone.  You're always here.  There's not one gathering where your name is not mentioned multiple times.  Little things constantly remind us all of you...

We shared a lot of laughs, and a lot of happy memories.  You were also there to offer your strong shoulder that night I was sad...and I'll always remember that, Corey.  You were a gentleman.  You were a fabulous friend.  You're a Guardian Angel to so many.

It's been 7 years.  7 years since we saw that big smile and heard that big laugh.  You're so missed, Corey.  So missed.

I know you're up there nibblin' on sponge cake until the day we can all dance again together - for the 'ol times...xoxo.

"I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Play, smile, think of me. All is well."
~ Henry Scott Holland

"This dress exacerbates the genetic betrayal that is my legacy. " **

My 20 year reunion from high school took place a few weekends ago. I'd love to report back that the all-time school bitch is still a bitch, and the super skinnies are fat and ugly, but I wouldn't know, because I didn't go. I have to admit to creeping on a few pictures that have been posted on a share site, and those who are pictured look great (really, most haven't changed a bit). Do I regret not attending the reunion in person? Not a bit. Truth be told, I was helping set up for Tanya's baby shower at Julie's, & I wouldn't have dreamed missing out on that to go to a stuffy locale to spend 2 hours with people I never liked to begin with.

In high school I had friends, don't get me wrong. I had a great collection of girls, all of whom I still keep close contact with today, and some of my all-time best memories are shared with them. Aside from 'my group', I was also friendly with a lot of other people, and I don't think I was on anyone's 'black list', for lack of a better term (in high school, that is). I wasn't "popular" by any means. I wasn't athletic. My parents didn't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, so I wasn't dressed head to toe in brand names and styles. My crushes on the cute, popular boys all went unrequited. I kept to myself, for the most part, and I earned decent grades. The list of 'accepted' people on the invitation list contained 98% of the people from my graduating class that I don't care about, and didn't associate with. I actually would love to set up an afternoon or evening with my old high school friends, or "bench gang", as we called ourselves. Our own little reunion of sorts. But, to pay $40 to eat (or $80 if I wanted to drag Chris with me) and view a room of snobs to see them continue to look down their nose at me? I'd rather watch paint dry. I'd rather endure a lengthy gynecological exam.

Surely there must be a reason why I'm so bitter, you're all saying to yourself. Yeah. Of course there are memories that are etched into the depths of my brain that I will never forget. Stupid, silly, grade school memories of a group of bullies who didn't want to accept the 'new girl' into their pact. Bullies who made me come home and cry every day after school. Bullies who made me write terrible things about them in my diary. The same bully pact that followed me from elementary, to junior high, and on to senior high school. So I carry a grudge. You don't treat me like shit in my 'formative' years and then slap me on the back and be my best friend years down the road. One girl went out of her way to do whatever she could to have the entire 6th grade class hate me. This girl, as you may guess, was one of those attendees to the auspicious 20 year reunion.

A decade ago, I did attend my 10 year reunion. I expected the 20 to be much the same. One of the popular girls (not the same girl in the aforementioned paragraph, but they both travel in the same circle) came over to the little bench gang grouping, and she smiled her fake smile, looking to see what we all did with our lives since leaving high school. She's apparently an accomplished sports psychologist or some such thing (and how she got the degree beside her name is beYOND me, because she wasn't the sharpest pin on the cushion through high school, let me tell ya). When it came to my turn, I proudly announced my then-place of employment. A call centre. She looked me deeply in the eyes, patted me on the shoulder and said, like she was sympathizing with me over a dead pet, "Oh.... it's okay....". I can't make this shit up -- and why would I?

So yeah, I wasn't in the right mindset to face her questions 10 years later, when although I'm not still working at that call centre, my future with my current employer is not really known right now. How do you go to a 20 year high school reunion without a known career path or answer to the question, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?". Besides that, I have probably another 50 or so odd pounds on since I bid adieu to my alma mater, and I just know I wouldn't fill out that dress like I'd like to. You can't blame a girl from being a little self-conscious.

I purposely didn't name any 'names' in this post - and if any of my graduating class happen to read this, I mean no offense. If you can figure out if you're one of 'those girls', you should just know that you really hurt me, and I wanted to let you know. I can only hope that you raise your children to be a little more respectful of their peers so history doesn't repeat itself.

Yeah, I opted out of my 20 year high school reunion. And I have no regrets.

** Alternate title, and both quotes courtesy of Heather from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion: "Why don't you tell everyone I said to go f@#k themselves for making my teen years a living hell?"