Angelversary!

20 years ago .... it feels like forever.  Then I go, and I place the flowers on Her grave, and suddenly I'm transported through time to that grieving 12 yr old.  I think about Her all the time.  I wonder what She would have looked like as an adult, what She would have gone to College/University for, who She would have married.  I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that we would still be best friends.  We were just innocent little girls with the world at our feet! 

I often think of the day before She died.  We were at school.  We played in the yard at recess time just like every other recess.  Then we came in after lunch.  She had a headache and ended up vomitting on the floor just outside the classroom door.  They called Her Mum and She went home.  I called Her after school to see how She was feeling, but there was no answer.  The next morning I was getting ready for school when I heard a whole lot of sirens.  You see, She lived right across the fence from me.  I could see Her front door from my front door.  Somehow, when I heard the sirens, I knew they were going to Her house.  Then ..... nothing.  The next day I didn't go to school.  I had an appointment at the Allergy Dr, and then we were going to leave early to go to the cottage.  When we got home from the Dr the phone rang.  I came downstairs into the kitchen with a hamper full of laundry.  That's when I first heard the news. 

"Tana, sit down. I have something to tell you."  Do you ever know something right before you are told it?  I have done this a total of 3 times in my life.  It truly is skin crawlingly creepy when it happens.  Deja vu in the weirdest sense!  When the words came out of Boot's mouth, I vividly remember dropping the hamper and falling to my knees.  She was gone!  How is that possible?  She wasn't sick leading up to her death.  In fact, She was the opposite.  A very alive, vivacious and active girl.  We had a book club, a babysitting club (just like the books), and we were even saving money in a jar on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. 

20 years ago ..... and I still cry everytime I think of Her.  She was such a gorgeous girl, inside and out!  I truly believe She taught me some very valuable lessons about family and love.  She was accepting of everyone ... not an enemy anywhere.  I wish I could be as forgiving as She was. 

She passed on the May long weekend.  I had the whole long weekend to prepare for what was about to come.  I had never been to a visitation, funeral or burial before.  I still have no idea how you prepare a 12 year old to see one of her best friends laying in a coffin.  It took me a very long time to work up the courage to go to the front of the room and look down into that coffin.  My teacher was there, and when he went up he started sobbing uncontrollably.  It must have been a good 30 minutes before I could go to the front, but it felt like 3 hours!

I remember being absolutely certain that I saw Her chest moving up and down.  Thinking that She looked like she was sleeping.  She was wearing a beautiful white dress with Her signature headband in her hair.  Her lips looked like they had pink chapstick on them, and there was a lot of Her favourite things in the coffin with her.Her funeral was a terrible day for me.  I had never been to a funeral before.  We drove another girl in our class, Erin.  I remember sitting in the church (which I hadn't done before either since I was old enough to remember), and listening to the choir and just wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole!  At the end of the service everyone walked up to the coffin one last time to say a final goodbye.  I was so unsure standing up there.  Did you kneel down?  Did you pray?  How do you pray?  We all formed a receiving line outside of the church, leading down the steps.  I was near the front of the line by the hearse .... big mistake!  My heart shattered into a million peices when Her coffin was placed inside that car, and the door was closed.  A huge peice of me drove away with Her.  The police officer that was teaching us about safety in our classroom was there, and she had on white cotton gloves, and she stopped traffic so everyone could follow the hearse to the graveyard.

It was decided that the best thing would be to stay at the church until the family arrived.  I have always regretted this decision.  I still to this day feel that seeing Her coffin in her plot would have been a sort of closure that I have always longed for.  For years I tried to find that plot.  I had no clue which cemetary it was in, or where in the cemetary it would be.  I didn't find it until I was 20.  I go every year on Her Angelversary to lay flowers on her grave and have a little chat.  At first it was hard to know what to say.  I believe that She is always with me, as is my beloved others that have since passed.  She see's my day to day stuff, the good, bad, and the ugly!  I think of Her everyday, but even more so on this day!

Ciao