D

I read this at Datura's memorial last Sunday, thought I would share it here in case anyone who wasn't there wanted to read it.

Sometime in early February of this year, I was wracking my brain trying to think of this great quote that I read somewhere. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I had read it. It was driving me crazy. 

The quote got me thinking about the meaning of home, especially when you get older. I feel like it becomes less of a place in the world and more about the things you carry within you and within the people you love.

Seeing Datura after a long time was like coming home. We would pick right up exactly where we left off, there was no guilty, “why haven’t you made time sooner.” We would enjoy that moment. 

Life happens, it’s the way things are.

Datura had an amazing knack for reminiscing, especially the really funny and sometimes really inappropriate incidents that you shared. I could always count on the two (or more) of us laughing so hard that we were doubled over in pain, tears streaming down our faces, annoying anyone who happened to be near us in our hysteria. 

We have known each other since we were 16 or 17. It’s a wonderful thing to have a friendship that has lasted for such a long time and at the same time, it’s a tragedy because at some point, one of us will have to say goodbye. 

I already miss her laugh and especially laughing with her. Her tiny giggle that would turn into her "deep cigarette cackle" as our mutual friend, Marc, so aptly describes it. It would be a stupid cliché’ to say something like, “I’ll never laugh again like I did with her. “ Instead, I think I’m going to try and keep laughing like that and remember her when I do.

Datura would love that. 

The day I got the news Datura died, I went to her Facebook page and found that quote I was looking for. It’s a quote from Stephen King’s book Revival. 

“That’s how you know you’re home, I think, no matter how far you’ve gone from it or how long you’ve been in some other place. Home is where they want you to stay longer.”

I want her to stay longer.

Side note to anyone who also lost D (or anyone for that matter) Grief is like getting intermittently punched in the gut, it comes and goes. I love you all and if anyone is feeling particularly raw or down, I'm always here. I don't like talking on the phone, but I'm always a text or message away.