Went to dinner with my sister who’s also pretty shaken up by the news tonight. We were remembering little things about Brooke and I mentioned that she had a cowlick in her bangs and she always wore ribbons in her hair (her mom had this amazingly organized ribbon collection). For some reason the ribbons really got to my sister. “I just can’t believe that little kid is gone.” And then: “But of course she wasn’t a little kid.” And see, now I’m remembering more stuff, like how she had a house full of cats and I was allergic to cats and spending the night, which I did all the time, was a sneezy, itchy affair if I didn’t take allergy medication early enough. She had a German Shepherd named Polo. Also, we drew on pillowcases with magic markers at one of her bday parties and I drew all my pets and their names. I still use that pillowcase as a sleeping bag cover (both the sleeping bag and pillowcase are in California which is why I can’t go camping in case you were thinking of asking me). Another quote from my sister: “She was so little.” (She was one of the shortest kids in class growing up.) Also, there were best friend necklaces. Two of them. I had the “Be Fri” half of the hearts and she had the “St End” part. And then there was this terrible summer camp we went to except she actually liked it and went back the next year. I think maybe I felt a little betrayed by that. Like: how could you like this total hellhole? Since when do we have different opinions?
We did grow apart. She got into 4-H and I got into makeup. We both rode horses for awhile but she was actually really good and jumped and won ribbons (again with the ribbons). She moved away in 7th grade I think. 6th grade? 8th grade? We kept in touch for awhile and then lost contact. We emailed again a couple years ago and I remember thinking we didn’t have that much in common anymore. Except even as I say this I can remember her phone number. I think she was the first person I ever really talked to extensively on the phone. We were Facebook friends and I think Myspace friends. She was tagged in a bunch of pictures after her death and the thing that’s kind of haunting me right now is that I looked at a bunch of pictures of her about a week ago without realizing they were uploaded in memoriam.
I’ve written before about how it’s the little mundane details of a person’s life that are crushing and human. You may have read this before but if not, here’s more on that.
