Poppy Mom: I'm Ready to Get Off the Roller Coaster, Please

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May 05, 2007

I'm Ready to Get Off the Roller Coaster, Please

I started the day by learning that a friend I'd made on a message board has died. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma several years ago. She was a wife, and mother to two kids, ages 17 and 12. She was 40 years old. Her name is Paula and she lived in Round Rock, Texas.

My dear friend Dixie wrote a beautiful post about her a few months ago, and today she wrote an even more beautiful eulogy for our friend. Please go read them.

My other friend PKB (I have a lot of friends. Have you noticed? I am so, so, so lucky and I hope I'm always able to do right by them.) broke the news to me. I broke the news to Dixie. It was the first time I'd heard her voice in over five years. Dixie lives in Germany, and the last time I heard that sweet Mississippi drawl of hers was in March, 2001, when we were both in Memphis. I've never had to tell someone that she's lost someone dear to her, until today when I did via trans-Atlantic phone call. I can't imagine it feels any better or worse breaking such news in person. It's the kind of news that just sucks all around.

Since I tend towards pessimism/panic/reality, I generally expect phone calls from people who don't normally call me to be bad news. I was hoping Dixie would be the same, but she's not. She sounded excited to hear from me. I hated raising her up just to bring her crashing down.

Dixie wrote about this today, and she did it much better than I can at this point. We cried together, but eventually we were telling each other funny stories and reliving our favorites stories. I think she started it by suddenly bringing up my nut story, which somehow led to her telling this story about a dog shitting in her dad's face, and I'm telling you this as a way of goading Dixie into telling that story on he own blog because my God, it is the funniest, most disgusting story you will ever know.

I don't know if this is a regional thing with southerners and border-staters with Ozarkian tendancies like myself, but we always have the big family get-together after a funeral. Everyone winds up talking, telling stories, laughing, and having a great time, then feeling guilty that we just put someone in the ground and here we are, telling poop and nut stories. Dixie and I had that moment today and agreed that Paula would most certainly approve. She loved her friends. She loved to laugh. We hoped that her spirit was laughing with us.

Clara Jane and I spent the day with PKB, trying to go about as normally as we could. Lunch and coffee, a trip to the yarn shop, painting Clara Jane's fingernails, all interspersed with tiny bits of grief.

My brain and my heart are trying to sort through Paula's death, and how these online friendships can leave such an impact. If she'd simply quit the message board, that would be one thing. Her words would be absent, but I'd know she was in the world, somewhere, even if she wasn't in my life. Now, her words are absent, and I wish I could just pretend that she's in the world, living her life with her husband, son and daughter. And yet, I can't do that and I don't understand why.

As I typed that last sentence, it came to me. This is why I write - it's the only way I can sort through the jumble in my head and figure out anything. The perfect example of why I can't simply pretend is just a few paragraphs up. Dixie. We were on two message boards together. I quit one. A year or two later, she quit the other. We didn't keep in touch, but I knew she was there. She and PKB were still on the board I'd left, so I'd get my Dixie updates on a regular basis.

Then, a little over two years ago, I learned that Dixie had started blogging. We started reading and commenting on each others' blogs. We talked knitting. We found ourselves on another message board together, emailing each other, and partaking in the squirreliest sock-knitting scheme ever.

The point is, I went years without Dixie's words, but I knew she was still there and there was a chance I'd have her in my life again. That's not the case with Paula.

In the midst of all this, we got the best news possible: our bid on the house was accepted. Come June, we'll be out of this horrible neighborhood, living in a beautiful little house in a lovely neighborhood. The kind of place I've always dreamed of living.

I don't think I've cried, laughed, laughed until I've cried, or cried until I've laughed as much in my life has I have in the past 12 hours. Such is life, and I feel a bit like I've lived all the emotions of one in a single day.

Posted by Robin at May 5, 2007 08:45 PM

Comments

Well, you'll sleep good tonight after all the laughing and crying.
CONGRATS on the house! May we have a link to all its photo goodness, please?

Posted by: allison at May 5, 2007 09:56 PM

I'm so sorry to hear about Paula. It's been a rough day (and week) for both you and Dixie, so it was good for you to laugh and cry together. I bet that Paula was looking down and laughing along with you two.

Posted by: Exena at May 5, 2007 10:39 PM

Oh Robin. Everything I didn't say yesterday, you said here. We really are identical cousins.

Love you bunches. I'm so glad we're friends.

Posted by: Dixie at May 6, 2007 08:39 AM

Painting the fingernails of a grateful angel makes my heart feel sparkly and beeeeeautiful.

Posted by: pkb at May 6, 2007 09:43 AM

THE BIGGEST HUGS TO YOU EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! some people go through their whole lives never knowing someone like paula... i just left a message over on dixie's blog...

and the house is such wonderful news! i'm glad that i don't have to put a pox on the House God's house now. :) i was fixin'ta, ya know.

xoxoxox

Posted by: kara at May 6, 2007 01:57 PM

Sorry 'bout the sad news; but glad to hear about the house...

If I lived any closer I'd come help ya'll move! :)

Posted by: Debbie at May 7, 2007 10:08 AM

I am so sorry to hear of her death. The hardest part of death is the seperation.

Online friendships go deep, deeper than normal society realizes. I found that out this morning.

Kudos on the new house.

Posted by: Cassie at May 7, 2007 10:31 AM

I'm sorry about Paula. *hugs*

Posted by: Rachel at May 7, 2007 11:30 AM

I'm so sorry for your loss. My "internet friends" are just as near and dear to me (and sometimes more so) than the ones I've met from "real life." I'm glad you and PKB are physically close to be there for each other, and that you have Dixie to share your grief with. I'm sending hugs from Chicago your way.

As for the funeral/party, we would always joke that our family put the "FUN" in funeral. We just thought it was an Irish/Catholic thing, to have a huge party and celebrate the life of those we've loved and lost, and those we still have with us. At my grandfather's funeral last December we had live Irish music and a catered luncheon after the burial, the little kids got up and showed off their step-dance skills and the old folks sat at their seats while the middle generation made the rounds to see how everyone was. I think it's healthy to embrace death as a part of life, and I think that's what those celebrations are all about.

Posted by: Meghan at May 7, 2007 03:26 PM

So sorry to hear of the death of your friend.

Many best wishes on the new house!

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