For Em

This used to be a ghost town

But even the ghosts got out

-Jason Isbell, “Overseas”

This sanctuary is full of ghosts. 

Your daddy. 

Your grannies. 

Our younger selves, giggling in the balcony, passing notes in the choir loft, swapping shoes under the pews when our mamas weren’t watching. 

The wounded and hurt little boy who grew up to wound and hurt others.

And now you have joined those ghosts.

“A service of celebration,” reads the church bulletin cover. The slightly smudged black script is stark against crisp cream paper and hasn’t changed since I first met you in this very room, nearly 40 years ago.

How do you distill 45 years of life into neat anecdotes and platitudes? With scriptures that ring especially hollow in the place I first learned to recite them?

So don't waste your mind on nursery rhymes

Or fairy tales of blood and wine

It's turtles all the way down the line

So to each their own 'til we go home

To other realms our souls must roam

To and through the myth that we all call space and time

-Sturgill Simpson, ”Turtles All the Way Down”

But I sing along to the comforting hymns, I recite the familiar liturgies, because you always believed. 

Not with childhood innocence or wonder, but with a real lived-in faith that refused to break, even when life and death and circumstance and trauma could and should have broken you. 

So I am not wearing black, but a sunny yellow geometric print one-shoulder dress and black kitten heels with whimsical bows. The outfit a reflection of your optimism and faith and kindness. Something you would have asked to borrow from my closet if you were still here.

I should have come before now. But honestly, I was terrified. I think you knew that.

Not just of seeing you older and sick and no longer the young, vibrant girl I befriended when I was new to this strange, insular place at just nine years old. 

But also of the past. Of the other whose memories and lives are intertwined with ours, like an uncontrollable weed choking out the good and the light and the happiness I felt when I was lucky enough to be around you and call you my best friend. From silly church choir tours and bowling nights and sleepovers to milestone events like birthdays and weddings and funerals and baptisms, you were there. But so was he. And so was I, the old me that I tried so hard to leave behind here.

I outgrew this town, this church, this faith, this version of myself. But never you.

And you stayed. First for your mama and then for your boys. Maybe even a little bit for yourself. It was safe. It was comfortable. It was home.

“You should have been there.” 

Those are the first words your now-best friends utter to me at the funeral. 

Not an admonishment but an acknowledgment of our history, years of togetherness, of being a pair. EmandLoo, no space or pause or distinction between where you began and I ended.

But they were the ones who were there. For you. For the end.

In another lifetime, I would have been there. And I would have, if you had asked. But you never did.

I had offered many times before. After your diagnosis. Before they opened up your brain to extract the tumor. During the first round of chemo. 

First, there was the pandemic and then there was life and work, endless excuses to postpone. And you always wanted to wait until you felt better, always saying we would find a day to get together soon.

I think we both knew that day would never come.

I buried her a thousand times, given up my place in line

But I don't give a damn about that now

There's one thing that's real clear to me

No one dies with dignity

We just try to ignore the elephant somehow

-Jason Isbell, “Elephant”

I was planning to see you, this week, invited or not.

I did, in a way. You are everywhere inside these four walls. Decades of memories rush back to me in this place. Tactile memories, like the softness of the scarf you knitted for my birthday. The deep alto tone of your singing voice, unexpected for your slight stature. The steadiness of your breathing, or your being, next to me in countless places and spaces over the years.

“We tried to contact you, but you’re not on Facebook anymore,” say those same friends.

“I’m sorry, she was just pushing buttons at the end,” says your mama of the silence those last few weeks.

Toxic social media platforms and modern technology were never your way of communicating anyway.

You preferred jotting down poems and song lyrics and witty observations on legal paper and worn journals and neat stationary, not in a text box on a screen.

And before the unanswered texts, the last days in hospice, the clock ran out, we said goodbye in our own way. With hours-long phone calls and handwritten notes and a pure, forever friendship and sisterhood that transcends death.

The last text you responded to was about my niece. She is eight years old, the same age that you were when we met. Also a redhead, like you, my mama, my sister. She has your unique sense of self and style and wonder about the world.

I don’t speak at the service, but here are the things I would have shared that I loved most about you:

Your thrifted overalls and plaid shirts and daddy’s old jeans before upcycled clothing was trendy.

Your earnest poetry.

Your stacks of books and journals and records.

Your crafty gifts.

Your voice, singing along to the guitar or the radio or a mix tape playing Blondie or Hole or Fleetwood Mac or James Taylor or the Beatles or Reba McEntire, depending on your mood.

Your love of the crisp mountain air, and how it suited you and you found your people there. 

Your throaty laughter and love of movies, like your daddy.

Your generosity and boundless optimism, like your mama.

Your empathy and kindness, like your Jonah.

Your bright red hair and nonconformist spirit, like your Cutler.

Your love for your boys and your pride at their accomplishments.

Your love letters.

Your love.

I love you, Em. Forever.

Loo

And I need more fingers to count the ones I love

This life may be too good to survive

-Shovels & Rope, St. Anne’s Parade