It has been a while since I have written a blog post. Life took a very unexpected turn not in a good way. A close friend of mine battled a long second bout with breast cancer. She won then followed up with a double mastectomy which led to her being in the hospital for several weeks…complications and everything else. While she was there at the hospital, we made an agreement [we bickered about because she was very independent and was like no I am fine] I would come down and stay with her for a few weeks and cook the food of our people [which she actually asked me to do because weeks of hospital food had worn down her resilience and her stomach was crying for seafood pancakes].

Her release kept getting put off day by day and then for some reason the universe decided that Florida needed a snowstorm and I was kept off the road [a five hour drive in Florida during unexpected snow something we both agreed would be a stupid thing to do]. The snow piled up while the doctors were still negotiating with each other about whether or not to let her go then finally decided on Wednesday January 23, she could go home. The snow kept me contained up here on Thursday but we agreed I would head down on Friday, which I did. Unbeknownst to me, she passed away sometime Friday as I was driving or maybe before I left.

The house was empty and dark when I got there. I could hear her phone ringing from inside as I was trying to get her to open the door. What I didn’t know was she had already been discovered to have passed away by a friend of hers who had come to check on her. When I called for a wellness check, the police officer who’d been in attendance during the initial call, came over to tell me in person. I was actually on the phone with somebody that Skippy held very dear to her heart and she was the first to inform me, as the police officer was coming up the walk. I am very grateful for everyone who helped me keep my shit together that weekend because it was probably fucking hell but I was just a little bit too numb to feel it.

I then drove back up on Sunday because what else could I do? It even hurt to be in the city. It planned to do a few things but mostly just sit together and be friends. And of course I would cook. I even had the pancake mix delivered and a grocery order in line so everything would be delivered when I was there.

I never got to make her that pancake and I’m angry about it.

The last couple of weeks have been a lot of pain and of course trying to make sense of what to do and how to do it. There were a lot of issues trying to find family members to contact but I knew that they were out there and it would just be a matter of digging around until we had good contact information. The responding officer was probably sick of hearing from me because I tried to keep her updated with every piece of information I had discovered along the way. It took way too long to get notifications out and just dealing with everything and everyone has left my guts spilled out all over the floor. To make matters worse, I came back from St. Petersburg with possibly one of the worst head colds I’d had in forever and I had too much stuff to do so drugging myself and crashing for a week wasn’t going to be a possibility.

I hate death and everything it brings with it.

I haven’t really had a chance to grieve. I kept having to put it aside and shove it down into a box. My grief became the Dormouse in the teapot. Except it is not sleepy. There are regrets and pain and a lot of wondering what I could have done were I should have been there. I think that is always the case with an unexpected death. Time and space do not allow for the bending of reality to comfort us.

Harley, my gentle southern gray tuxedo lady cat, tries to comfort by climbing on top of me or being next to me. I don’t know if it is her trying to make me feel better or to make herself feel better because she knows I am agitated. Either way, it’s hard to explain to an old lady cat that she cannot live attached to me.

I am very tired and very emotionally wrung out. I don’t know what else to say and I don’t know what else to do. I have a bunch of pictures that I have built up over the past week or so because cooking is something that at least feels comfortable and something I can control especially when the universe spins out of order so I will probably share that this weekend. I promised Skippy I would cook and that just seemed to to be where I could at least do something.

I also have a trip planned to New Orleans which was made a while ago and honestly considering how everything has been the past few years and especially hard the past few weeks, I’m hoping to just go and let go of everything that I’ve been carrying. I love the city and we are going at the time where it will be fairly low-key. Right in between Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. I will probably take pictures and share those when I get back. I am going with somebody I love and who has never been to the city so I just want to immerse myself in that friendship and the others that I have around me to try to heal a little bit of the scraping on my soul.

So Skippy, wherever you are right now, I hope you are doing well and that the universe is sharing everything you’ve ever wanted to know or experience. You are to be to be missed and are very well loved.