Thanks for the memories.

“Hold on to the memories, / they will hold on to you. / and I will hold on to you.”

One night in early January last year I was at Disneyland with my big kids and Matt, when Katie texted me. After a few texts back and forth I told Matt I thought Katie might have very bad news about Jenn. He took the kids, and as I lagged behind a bit, she called. She told me the news that Jenn was gone. We talked for a few minutes. I caught up with my family at the line to the Indiana Jones ride (a ride which, I’ll note and I’m just realizing this now, I have ridden with Jenn. Long long time ago). It was late, and the parade was about to start, so the crowds weren’t bad. We made our way easily through the dim, winding, lamp-flickering halls of that line as I cried and my kids looked up at me with big eyes.

When we got to my parents’ house late that night, I told my mom, and I texted Hannah. I tried to get hold of my friend Alex, who was living (practically) off the grid somewhere in Africa, as one does. I packed and cried.

We left on our drive home the next day. I finally reached Alex’s mom, Louise, who helped me reach Alex. I spent the next few days as we made our way across the country, pretty much only texting about and talking about Jenn, and when I wasn’t texting about or talking about Jenn, I was thinking about her.

I wonder if it would have hit me so hard if I hadn’t been in Monrovia when it happened, and if I hadn’t had plans to meet Jenn the day before she died (plans she had canceled at the last minute), and if she hadn’t texted me minutes before she died, and if I hadn’t told a few people I was worried about her, and if I hadn’t already been worried about her for six months prior, and I’d I hadn’t had plans to meet her in Vegas a few weeks later.

I’ll never know the answer to that, and it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s not about me. And this post is about gratitude. I am thankful for my ridiculous memory. The memory of the night when I found out about Jenn’s death, when all the pieces came together in one horrifying revelation, sticks with me in full color, and I can still hear Katie’s voice as she told me the news. I guess maybe I’d rather not remember that. But more importantly, the many memories I have of Jenn as my living friend stick with me. Her voice and her laugh and her hair and her clothes and her gestures and the way she walked. This may sound weird but until that day in January when I knew we had lost Jenn, I truly did not understand how much I cared about the people in my life. I never knew how much I had memorized them. I have a big family and a decent handful of close friends. I have memorized them all. I don’t want to lose them and I’m sorry that I’ve lost Jenn. But I have learned that my memory for those details is extra crazy sharp for some reason, and I’m thankful for that. 

As I flew home from my Grandma Helen’s funeral, several months before Jenn’s death, I listened to Grandma’s funeral playlist (yep, there was one) and was able to cry in a way that I hadn’t at the funeral. The tinny vocals and ukulele of “Show Me the Way to Go Home” brought her back to me for a few minutes, and I let myself fully feel my love and sorrow, and I could see her face when I closed my eyes. Since January, I’ve listened to Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga probably more than any grown woman could (or maybe should!) simply because Jenn loved them, and it soothes me and it helps happier memories of Jenn stand out in even sharper relief. 

I see funny memes and ridiculous news headlines that I want to forward to Jenn, and I have thoughts and stories and things to report that I want to text to her. But I can’t. Instead I think them. I think them upward, straight up to the sky, and I hope that she hears them and sees them and feels my love for her, maybe with “Getaway Car” in the background.