Sometimes I Eat Rice

Hello all from a late night on the couch,

I am watching one of my Nanny's favorite movies, Ghost. You know the old movie with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore? Oh, the chills I get and I never ever fail to cry. This is not what I intended to watch tonight. You see, I was trying to study for a test so I was looking for something on the TV that I had seen so many times, I would not be distracted by it. I didn't want to sit in complete silence. I flipped through the TV Guide channel to find that Miss Congeniality was on CMT. Perfect, I have watched this movie so many times I feel like I am Gracie Lou Freebush. So I turned the channel to surprisingly find Ghost. Maybe it was just running over a little and Miss Congeniality would come on in a few minutes. Nope, the movie was about half way through right at the part where Mr. Swayze was singing to Oda May Brown trying to get her to go talk to Molly. The Guide had it wrong.

The funny thing about me is, I take everything as a sign. I am very superstitious about certain things. Lately, I have been having an internal debate on whether or not to blog about what I am going to blog about tonight. Actually, I have been struggling with this for a while now because I don't really know how to feel about writing something like this. I don't feel like it's my place, like I'm not the right person to do it even as I am typing it out right now. Each words feel so wrong because the whole thing itself is so unbelievable to me. But a lot of things like this movie experience tonight have been happening to me lately, so I think maybe it is a sign that it is okay for me to do this.

This past December, I had my first real experience with death. A dear friend of mine passed away. I wasn't truly that close to Brooke, we were not best friends, she had Sarah for that. But I had classes with her from sixth grade when we were all ugly as sin thinking we were hot stuff, up through high school in Mrs. Gnann's nursing academy until the day we graduated. There was a group of us girls who always stuck together in pretty much every class. It was Brooke, Sarah, Cassie, Delaney, and I. We all sat near each other in class and chatted across our tables as we did our assignments, got kicked out of class together and made to stand in the grass when Gnann saw it fit to punish us for something, we all went to church and 5th quarter, we prepared for homecoming week and built the floats at her house, and we all ate pudding in the practice hospital beds when Gnann wasn't look and even when she was. Oh yes, Brooke was always there, and I am glad she was. There was not a dull moment with her in the room. She brought something that nobody else had. I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it was, but it was her.

Brooke was always so well put together. I remember being in the sixth grade and seeing her and her cute outfits and being envious. Now I look back at pictures and laugh because we really were not all that. In high school she dressed so perfectly. Everything she wore seemed to hang right and her hair never got frizzy. Oh, how I loathed her for having hair that would stay straight. She looked good in everything she wore and she was naturally pretty. She never really had to try to look pretty. She could probably have worn a burlap potato sack and rocked it just the same.

She was such an amazing friend to Sarah. They were totally inseparable, literally you would never see one without the other. I remember when I started hearing rumors around school that Sarah was pregnant. After a few days of deciding on whether or not to ask, I approached Sarah, who was of course, sitting by Brooke in Mrs. Gnann's class. I walked up and said, "Sarah? I have been hearing certain things..." Sarah gave me a look and said, "what sort of things?" All I could think was, "Oh, crap, someone has done sent me barking up the wrong tree. I am about to ask this girl if she is pregnant and she isn't going to be and I am going to get beat up because then I will be indicating that I think she is fat (which she wasn't showing at all)." I looked down at my feet and said something along the lines of, "I'm not sure I want to ask anymore."

This is where Brooke and her loyalty to Sarah comes in. Very protectively she said, "Well, I think Sarah would rather you just ask her instead of going and talking about it behind her back." OH SNAP! I was totally stunned, Brooke was normally so docile and laid back. Momma bear was truly coming out of her that day. At that point, I had no choice but to ask. Sarah was indeed pregnant with a baby who would one day become my sweet little Kinley Brooke.

The only time the two were ever really apart that I can actually think of is the night we went to Grad Night at Disney World. Since Sarah was definitely pregnant at this point, she very well could not go and ride Space Mountain with us. Instead, Brooke hung out with us, which was typical enough anyways. It was just so odd with Sarah not being right beside her. Brooke was a fantastic fun as always. Everything she did was hilarious. I even managed to catch some of this fun in action. On Grad Nite, Disney is shut down for a few schools' graduating seniors. They have all the rides open, have concerts at Cinderella's Castle, and they set up these little dance club areas for a little more "grown up" fun. We went to one in particular that was awesome. There was no music playing but everyone was dancing with these massive 90s type headphones on their ears. When we walked in, we were each handed a pair and told to select a channel of music. This would explain why some people were booty popping and why others were slowing it down. The headphones were playing all different sorts of music. We put ours on and began to dance the night away. Oh, what fun it was! At some point, I asked a stranger to take a picture of all of us. Every single one of the girls with us were all posed cute and looking at the camera. Everyone of us, except for Brooke that is. She obviously didn't get the memo because in the picture, she was still dancing with her hands up in the air, not looking in even the remotest direction of the camera. It is, to this day, one of my favorite pictures ever. It describes her perfectly, always dancing to the beat of her own drum and doing what she wanted to, regardless of what others were doing. She was her own wonderful person.

After high school, we didn't really talk too much. But I did get to see her marry her high school sweetheart, James Allen. She was so very much in love with him. I dated him for like a week in middle school or high school, I don't really remember which. His mom wasn't too fond of me because she came home to find me sitting on his lap outside on the porch in a rocking chair. I can honestly say, we were not doing anything! As any mother of a boy that age, she was just doing her duty of protecting her son. She was not happy with us but that was okay, because a few days later, we broke up for. When Brooke told me she was dating him, I told her to watch out for his mean momma because she was crazy. Sorry ma'am I didn't really mean it!

The last real conversation I had with Brooke was over Facebook about her wedding. She was asking for my address to send mine and Cassie's invites out to Tallahassee so we could save the date. I still have it saved in my messages. Cassie and I had received like 2 or 3 different invitations. Brooke said the reason we didn't get the initial one was because her mom didn't put the city, state or zip code part to our address and were sent back to her. She wanted to send us another one and we ended up getting a few of them. I guess she wanted to be really sure we received them this time.

She also sent us an invite for her lingerie party. I had to work that night and couldn't make it. I was contemplating calling out, but I wanted to make back the money I spent on the cute bra and panty set I bought her. Now, I wish with all my heart that I would have just skipped work. Still, I had the greatest honor of witnessing her getting married. She was truly a most magical vision in white. Her boobs looked so good in her dress and I was completely jealous. I remember thinking how lucky she was to have found her soul mate so young while they could still do fun things that young people do together. I sat there in horror thinking that I wouldn't find mine until I was 80. That nightmare is still going on, ha!

I helped Sarah decorate her getaway car. By help I mean I stood there and made suggestions. We were trying to think of things to write on the windows. I suggested writing, "honk if you are horny, we are" on one of the windows. I am not sure if we actually ended up writing that, because we were in a church parking lot.

After she drove away with James, that was the last time I saw her.

Sarah and I kind of quit talking after that too. Not for any reason in particular, but I guess we just kind of grew apart since I was always out in Tallahassee. We reconnected a few months before Brooke passed away. We were hanging out pretty much every time I came home for the whole time I was home. I was starting to practically become a Mobley with how much I was over at her house.

Sarah was the one to tell me about Brooke. When she texted me, I thought she was going to tell me some drama. All it said was,"Cara." I thought she was going to tell me some juicy gossip or something scandalous. I replied, but I am not sure with what. But all of a sudden, I got this really bad feeling. She didn't text me back immediately like she normally did and she had literally just texted me. For some reason I started panicking and sent her a text saying, "why do I get the feeling you are going to tell me something bad?" Maybe something really was going on. I remember getting out of the car with an armful of groceries and getting a second text that said, "Brooke was in a fatal wreck." I asked, "Brooke who?" because I had no idea who she was talking about. It didn't click in my head because Brooke was not the first person who I would think of in this situation. Then she confirmed my fears. It was her Brooke, all ours' Brooke. All I could say was, "She died? I don't understand."

I didn't understand. I've never had anyone I really know personally die. This was completely unreal and new to me. I feel like there are a lot of other people from my graduating class who I could picture dying before I would even consider Brooke. That sounds bad but seriously, she is the last person who would ever cross my mind in this situation. She was so good, so purely perfect and beautiful. Surely, death could not really touch someone like her. I couldn't comprehend it.

After that, Sarah and I were together pretty much every second of the day that she wasn't helping do stuff for the funeral, and the day I went shopping for something black to attend my first ever funeral. I personally love black clothing, but on that particular day, I could find nothing at all that I would even consider wearing. Nothing looked right. I didn't feel like I should have to be buying an outfit for something like this. I had a lot of hate in my heart for the world that day.

I didn't feel like I ever wanted to leave Sarah's side. I had no idea how she was even standing or talking, and I feared that if I left her alone she would break. All I could think was, I would have to be sedated and put in a medically induced coma if this was my best friend. Cassie was up in North Carolina with Matt at the time, and I was longing to hug her and tell her how much I truly loved her and how very glad I was to have her as my best friend. All I could do was look at Sarah in awe, she was handling this better than I could have ever pictured myself doing.

We had really deep conversations about everything for the next few days. One night, we sat in the McDonald's parking lot eating ice cream and french fries. For some reason, we started talking about God and what happens after death. I told Sarah that I hadn't really had a good relationship with my faith since someone in my old church told me that people are not reunited after death, that you don't remember your family members and friends. This hurt me to the core because my idea of heaven and afterlife was that I would be rejoicing with everyone I held dear in my heart and praising our King together. I was really shaken after that and I slowly fell out of church. We talked about our anger at the world and how we wished we had some answers. To just know that we would see her again would make us feel better.

The funeral service was the next day. I had no idea how to even act. I just tried to get through it. When I woke up that morning, I seriously considered not going. It was hard. Probably one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I am so glad I went. The preacher got up and did his piece. I know it was for everyone and it was for Brooke, but it was almost like he was talking directly to me. Everything I talked about with Sarah the night before, all those questions about what happens after we died, he answered. He gave me hope again. He cleared any doubt I ever had in my life about heaven. I knew I would see Brooke again, everyone who I ever loved, and that made me... well, it is kind of indescribable.

Sarah and I have pretty much been glued to the hip lately. I often wonder about this. Why did we reconnect when we did? How come we started talking only a few months before all this happened? I say that everything happens for a reason, that I don't believe in coincidence. I now know in my heart why we became so close. The Lord knew that she would need someone. She would need someone when her best friend could no longer be there for her. Not in a physical way anyways. And that person, somehow or another He saw it fit for that person to be me. I find myself feeling very conflicted about this a lot. I never ever want to take Brooke's place, and I couldn't. She and Sarah share what Cassie and I have, and there will never be anyone else to fill those shoes quite right for her. But I am trying to do it the best that I can. Sarah is one of the closest friends I have, and I am so thankful for it. Sometimes late at night, I pray. But not to God. I normally do this far after I have already said my evening prayers. Sometimes I pray to Brooke. That sounds silly, but I always ask her if I am doing this right and if I am taking good enough care of her best friend until she can do it again. Am I being a friend that would make Brooke proud? I always tell her to tell me if I am slacking or if I should be doing something different. I believe with my whole heart that she would let me know in someway or another. She would never leave Sarah completely alone.

Since then, I have no doubt that there is a heaven. When I drive back and forth between home and Tallahassee, I normally leave around sunset time. The colors of the sky are so dazzling and stunningly beautiful with all the purples, oranges, pinks and blues mixed into a one of a kind masterpiece. I realize that this is work of art that could only be painted by the angels, angels like Brooke. I know that she is up there watching out for all of us, especially Sarah.

Brooke, I think of you often. Every time I go to sushi rock I think about you and your love for rice. Every time I look at the picture that Cassie has in her room of me and her in our scrubs I think of Gnann's class. Every time I go to a Mexican restaurant I remember when Gnann would take us all on unauthorized field trips. When Kinley plays with her baton, I think of when you and Sarah did the majorettes in middle school and how I thought y'all were so cool. And every time I look at your Facebook, I see a kind of beauty in you that is truly timeless. I have no doubt that you are rocking those angel wings better than I ever could.

I believe she is around us down here too. She will always be. For anyone out there who is dealing with loss, please know you are not alone. A wise man named Albus Dumbledore once said, "The ones we love never truly leave us." I believe this is the truest of any truth. We are not alone.