Memories, "D."

Memories. "D."

1981-1996.

We met in grade 7. She was in the other grade 7 class along with my other new friend, J. J. and D. were my only friends at this otherwise disastrous school. They were both lifesavers.

She had some t-shirts to sell at school, and I bought a purple one that read "disco sucks" in glitter font across the front.

She dragged me off to a Brownies-type meeting. I felt too awkward to continue going. But here was D., who really was rather awkward, and *she* had fun. I should have listened to her. It would have made grade 7 a bit more bearable.

D.'s father truly scared me. I think he scared her too. Her mother was kind to me, and kind to her.

D. had a lisp. She would kill me for saying that. "It is NOT a lisp. It is a French accent", she would insist, though none of the rest of her family had it.

Her sisters were older, slimmer, prettier. D. was short, wide, lispy. It nagged at her. I wish I would have told her she was pretty. She might have believed me. Probably not. She was smart. So I wish I would have told her she was smart more often than I did.

J. married very early, moved into a 2-room shack behind the laundromat, and had a stillborn baby at age 18. D. insisted that I go to the hospital to see J. with her. D. provided J. with such comfort. I stood there like a dork.

D. was always sick. She didn't take very good care of herself. She ate a lot of crap. I never saw her eat anything you couldn't buy at Mac's Mart. It worried me. She didn't want to talk about it.

She volunteered to do my taxes for me. She was amazing with money, at least when it came to the business aspect. I always wanted her to do my taxes again, but didn't.

She loved television. LOVED it. She had a collection of TV guides. She made notes in them. Her favourite show was Cagney and Lacey.

As the years went on, we kept in touch off and on. She called me mostly when she needed me:

...she was moving,

...she was alone and pregnant,

...her ex was being a bastard,

...she didn't love the man who loved her and she didn't understand why, because he was a wonderful man,

...her living room needed painting,

...her lovely gray cat needed a home, could I take him? (sadly, I couldn't)

...I'd left my address book at her house years ago, she found it, do I need it back?

...she was lonely.

The last time I spoke to her, she told me that the man who loved her had died suddenly of diabetic complications. The regret in her voice was tangible. She felt so terrible, I didn't know what to say to help her deal with that regret.

I was tired of her calling me only when she needed me. I don't think I told her that (though I was enough of an asshole that I might have). I wanted to be friends for the hell of it, not because she needed something from me. How stupid I was. It's all more obvious now.

She changed phone numbers often. I think she liked the intrigue. She moved often, too. I never knew how to get ahold of her or where she was living.

Her life became much, much more difficult after she had her baby. He had chromosomal issues. Fragile X, maybe. Severe autism, maybe. She was still saving for him to go to college.

I hadn't heard from her in ages. I feared the worst, then learned that she died of cancer in 2002.

She had few friends. We had no mutual friends (except for J., gone into the ether long ago, no way for me to know how to find her, either).

I wanted to write something of how I felt about her. But I fear that my feelings, like our friendship, will be left suspended indefinitely by our drifting apart and her early death. I'm so sorry that it seems I never know what to do when it comes to this sort of thing. So I wanted, then, to list these things about her. That is at least something.