I have no words.

Heather, Maddie, and Mike, I hold you all so close. I’m so, so sorry. And sorry will never, ever be enough.

Fuck.

I don’t understand. I just don’t understand. And I’m just so sorry.

“When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you, it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!”

“And when you’re consoled (everyone is eventually consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me. You’ll always be my friend. You’ll feel like laughing with me. And you’ll open your windows sometimes just for the fun of it… And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you’re looking up at the sky. Then you’ll tell them, ‘Yes, it’s the stars. They always make me laugh!”

—The Little Price

This is not a new post, but a copy of a post that I wrote several weeks ago, that I am reposting for Cali’s Day to Remember. I don’t have it in me to come up with something good enough to say about my Stephie right now, except that I miss her terribly.

———

One of the last truly happy memories I have of my friend Steph was when we went together to see the Rolling Stones. I loved The Stones, but Steph was obsessed. Her bedroom walls were literally papered floor to ceiling with pictures of Mick and The Boys carefully cut from magazines, and she had a typical girlish crush (read: obsession) with Mick Jagger.

Saw you stretched out in room ten-o-nine
With a smile on your face
And a tear right in your eye

I can still see her in my mind’s eye, if I try hard enough, huge smile on her face as she belted out the lyrics to all of the songs (of which, I personally knew only a fraction) while taking drags off her Camel Wide Light.

Couldn’t seem to get a line on you
My sweet honey love

That was my friend.

The same friend who smelled like a garden with me, the same friend who threw my baby shower when I was pregnant with Ben. She (and Ashley) are the reason that for every party I throw, I must have a cutout Hula Girl thrown up somewhere (we found it along with every color of the rainbow baby dolls in our quest for the Tackiest Shower Decorations Ever). She was my introduction to flavored coffees and Opium perfume. I think I still have her copy of ‘œGoat’s Head Soup’ somewhere.

Well, you’re drunk in the alley, baby
With your clothes all torn
And your late night friends
Leave you in the cold gray dawn
Just seemed too many flies on you
I just can’t brush them off

Somewhere, probably up in Heaven, she is laughing at me right now. I can almost hear it’s distinctive peal tinkling over me as I write this. She’s sitting up in Heaven surrounded by stacks of every Rolling Stones record (even the unreleased B-Sides) ever recorded, drinking her ubiquitous cup of coffee, with a carton of Camel Wide Lights by her side, and she is laughing.

She had a beautiful laugh. It was the sort that made you smile no matter what mood you were in, the kind that made other people around you stop and look around for the source (but not because it was annoying or grating, but because it was so full of happiness). I always wished I’d had a laugh like that, and now I just wish I could hear her laugh again.

Tonight I bury my friend.

And the angels beating all their wings in time
With smiles on their faces
And a gleam right in their eyes
Thought I heard one sigh for you
Come on up, come on up, now
Come on up, now

(I am linking here so that you may go over and see what she looked like. I don’t have a scanner, so I cannot scan a picture in of her right this moment like I’d like to).

This week, I’ve been posting under titles ripped from Rolling Stones lyrics as a (pathetic) tribute to Steph, as I know she would have liked it. I don’t have any better way to commemorate her yet, so I will likely continue doing so from time to time. Maybe it’s not as permanent as a tattoo, but it’s something.

One of my own favorite Stones songs has always been ‘œShine a Light,’ but it always confused me until Steph died. The ebullient chorus coupled with the really depressing stanzas always seemed such a disconnect until I looked at them in this light. When I reread the lyrics, it made perfect sense.

Now, if this were anyone else, I’d have scoured The Internet looking for a poem or quote to dedicate, but Steph probably wouldn’t have appreciated that nearly as much. It just wasn’t the way she rolled.

And normally, I refrain from posting lyrics to songs because it makes no fucking sense and offers very little emotion without the music behind it, but today isn’t a normal day.

May the Good Lord shine a light on you
Make every song you sing your favorite tune
May the Good Lord shine a light on you
Warm like the evening sun.

The world is a colder place having lost Steph, although I am certain she is far happier where she is now. But I’m a selfish prick, and I want her back. I don’t want to be attending her funeral tonight. I don’t want to bury my friend.

I want her to come back and tell me that this was the ultimate prank. I want her to jump out from behind a door and yell ‘œPsych!’ and laugh uproariously at my stunned reaction. I want her to be who she was before the disease took her Shine away from her, and I want her to get her life back on track. I want to have coffee and play dates with her, I want our children to grow up together as good friends, I want to sit around and reminisce about the dumb shit we did when we were kids. I want to get old with her and start switching to decaf and vitamins, rather than coffee and cigarettes, I want to laugh with her again.

I don’t want to bury her tonight.

She was my friend and I loved her very much and I don’t want her to be dead.

I know that I’d mentioned before that I totally didn’t care which flavor crotch parasite I was having. And this was true. But what I neglected to mention is that I am totally terrified of having a baby girl.

My experiences with girls have not always been positive. I don’t really want more girlfriends. I have had bad luck with some of those that I have had. My own mother and I have never been on great terms.

I was equally terrified to find out that Ben was a boy, as I was convinced he was a girl, so my intuition is clearly skewed. I imagined that they would break things, have to own trucks and trains, and pee on the seat. Now that mine is 5, I can honestly tell you, ‘Yes, they do.’ But boys are easy, too. There is no drama.

I was stereotyping my crotch parasite before it was born.

The upside to having a girl is that I would cease to be outnumbered (even all the animals but one are male in my house). Even WHEN the men in my family go to Best Buy, play video games or golf, I stood a chance at having someone to go convince me to buy shoes. And clothes. And we could lunch, like ladies and stuff. Girl clothes are freaking adorable, and I knew how much fun I would have buying them. And I could do hair! And makeup! And have someone to be girly with!

I could impart my knowledge of shaving legs and douching with someone WHO MIGHT CARE, unlike the menfolk with whom I currently live.

But this is just going to have to wait…

…because it’s another boy! I am the Queen of the Sausages, officially.

Now where the fuck is my tiara?

Yes, folks, we saw the twig and crackleberries of our newest son yesterday. He looks happy, healthy and totally willing to show us his willie.

Sounds like he’s taking after his father, already.

Oh, and by the by Dave?

That Britney shirt is waiting.