Cecily

How long did I know you?

I can’t remember.

Not long enough.  Always.

I can’t remember when we didn’t actually meet but we met.  Back in the dark ages of Yahoo groups, anyway.

The lot of us, “sisters”, migrated over to Facebook eventually, but it was Yahoo groups first.

We all had babies, relationships, sorrows, joys.  We were honest, open, vulnerable, trusting.  We leaned on each other despite mostly never having been in the same room.

Fey.  You were fey.

Warm.  Sweet.  Funny.

We watched our children grow together, apart but connected.

Now what?

You will not see my Evil Genius and Sprout as they become amazing people.  How will we see your W and D grow up if you aren’t here to share them?

You were quiet, gentle.  What did your voice sound like?  I don’t know, really.  Just snatches on video, not the same as in person.  You meditated daily in support of the water protectors at Standing Rock.  I didn’t always watch.  I was busy with my own disasters. 

Our last conversation was about my son’s hair growing back after a drastic cutting...in 2017. Why did we fall silent?

That man, why did he kill you?  Gentle soul, what could have made him bring an instrument of violence and death into your home and use it on you before turning it on himself?  Why couldn’t he just take his own hateful life?  His life, his choice...your life wasn’t his to steal.  Why couldn’t he quench his darkness and leave us your light?

I want to drag him back from the other side, drag him away from whatever his punishment or peace may be and make him pay.  I feel, my dear, sweet Cecily, I feel such anger, such...hatred...for that horrible, odious,  evil, twisted, tortured man.  I want to hurt him.  I want to make him pay.  I want to punish the people who made him and raised him up to be a murderer, who shaped him into the kind of person who could be so rotten, so selfish, so...

Damaged.

But you wouldn’t, would you?  Sweet Cecily.

You fell silent and all I knew was what little you’d shown us, that your love was brilliant and deep and dizzying and...I never saw it devouring you.

Why didn’t you reach out?  Why didn’t I notice?  Why?  So much why.

My friend in the Blue Nowhere, sister of my soul, gentle mother, persistent light in the cloying dark, you will be sorely missed by so many.  

Hail the traveler.

Hail Cecily.

May your journey to the next world be a peaceful one.

May you leave behind all memory of pain and sorrow.

May you carry with you all memory of love and happiness.

May you be met with joy and fellowship by those who went before you, and should you return to the circle once again, may we who loved you in this life have the honor of knowing you again.

Hail Cecily.

Hail the traveler.

“Other people’s solipsism is annoying” - Cecily