My friend, Alison Bodey - part II

After reading my first blog about my friend Alison, I saw that I had done what the Sherriff had done.  Like him, I made a snap decision and reported the facts.  It seems my first blog was not well thought out and just rambled.  My heart was seared with the immediacy of the pain I was feeling for the loss of my friend.  I want to apologize to the Sherriff.  I know he was just doing his job but man, with the complete shock of losing a friend the last thing I wanted to read as the last line was that she was not wearing her seatbelt.  Like it was her fault because she wasn’t strapped in, who cares about that?  I guess in some way I was defensive of my friend, not wanting people to talk bad about her or hurt her feelings in anyway.

I am amazed by the number of people who reached out to me about my last blog.  I even reconnected with folks I remember from those trips to Morehead State back in the day.  I have had a hard time the last few days, as this has hit me harder than I would have thought.  I suppose one does not really think about such things and how hard they will be when they happen.  I am experiencing a weird mix of emotions.  Every time I think about it, about her, about her kids and about her death it just seems crazy and I am unsure how I should act, what I should do.  I have stared at Google maps looking for where I think it happened, just east of Millerstown road on Zimmerman is what I hear.  I have zoomed in to look at every foot of that road, not sure what I am looking for, and obviously there won’t be real time pictures of the accident.  There won’t be skid marks I could analyze, there is nothing, nothing but the trees and fields, same thing that has always been along that stretch of road.      

I have electronically chatted with her oldest daughter, Caitlin.  I think that is cool – I suppose that is more for my own selfish reasons, trying to hold onto something that was, and is not there now.  Still I think it is cool.  She is the spitting image of her Mom.  From reading some of her posts on FB I suspect she has a lot of the same attitudes, outlooks and life philosophies as well.  Good for you Caitlin because those are some of the attributes that made your Mom who she was.  I received a very nice email from my blog from a friend of Alison’s from Myrtle tree Baptist Church, telling about the influence Alison had on her.  It was a very touching email.   It seems weird for me to even be thinking about Alison and all the times we had back in the day and since we started our journey together but each of us have followed our own very different paths in life.  Her journey took her back to our hometown, mine took me literally around the world and I could never imagine moving back to our hometown.    

Why is it that we allow the wrong things to dominate our lives?  Why are we in such a hurry to go and to do?  Why… why not slow down a bit and realize the stupid shit most of us are chasing is the wrong stuff!  I think Alison understood that better than most.  That syndrome seems to get worse the older we get, our bodies grow old, we get set in our ways and we seem to forget the important things in life.  I hope each of you can hold onto your childhood spirit, be young and mischievous, adventurous and light hearted.  At least try to be that for one day, just one day and do it in remembrance of Alison Bodey!   I had to find it but I remembered a quote from John Steinbeck from “The Winter of Our Discontent” that I liked when I read it and I think is perfect here: 

It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

The world just seems a little grayer, a darker place without her in it anymore. 

I suppose the most important question one can ask at times like this is, did they really live life?  I guess at this point in my life I should know, or at least understand what it means to lose someone that is dear to me.  It never seems to fail that when I tell myself that, intellectually I know it to be true, death is the inevitable end of life for all of us.  But loss is not about the intellectuality of things.  Loss is about the gaping hole left in one’s heart when our friends and family pass away.  Sad thing is, one can never really repair the holes this kind of loss brings.  All we can do is to learn to live our lives around the holes.  On more than one occasion after a loss, I have wondered, wouldn’t it be cool if we could have just one more conversation.  One more chance to ask the things we never thought we should, one more chance to ask the things that are important in our lives.  Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to get one more chance to make up for the time we think we have? 

I am reminded of a favorite scene from a movie called “Waking Ned Devine” that Bride and I just watched again recently.  One of the main characters, Jackie O’Shea, was talking at a funeral: 

“Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend.  But I don't ever remember telling him that. The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead. What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral. To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself. Michael and I grew old together. But at times, when we laughed, we grew young. If he was here now, if he could hear what I say, I'd congratulate him on being a great man, and thank him for being a friend.”

I think that is how I feel about Alison.  She was a great friend, but I don’t think I ever told her so, at least not so simpley stated.  I want to thank her for being my friend, I am better for having known her.   

“Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend, but I don't ever remember telling him that.” 

That is a sad commentary really.  How many people in our lives do we consider to be great friends and we never tell them that, not in a meaningful way anyway.   What is it that we can do to ensure our friends know how we feel about them?  If you have never watched that movie, you must go and rent it, it is on my top 10 – perfect justice all the way around at the end of that movie.     

Bride asked me if I’d like to go to her funeral.  I was unsure of what that answer should be.  It really turned out to be a moot point, I have to travel to Canada for work on the day of her funeral.  I wondered if I would want to go if I did not have a prior work commitment.  It has been a long, long time since we have seen each other.  I do not know her kids, her parents are gone.  I wondered if it would be just for my own sense of closure.  I am not big on funerals, even less excited about viewings, although my Sister told me the casket was done with Pink Floyd which I would have liked to have seen.  I did not even go over to the casket at my Dad’s viewing.  I did that once when I was younger, and then that was the last image I had of that person.  For me, I do not want the rest of my days with the image of what is left of someone I loved, propped up in a box for all to see.  I refuse to remember my friends like that.  I choose to remember them in life, not death.  Would I go, I think I would.  While I can use my mind’s eye to remember my friend and the parts of the journey of life we shared, it would be fun to listen to others tell their stories and shared experiences with Alison.

After reading back through this I suppose this is still about me mourning the loss of my great friend and not yet a tribute to her – I am working on it.   

                                                     
Below is a picture from one of her albums on FB, adorable donkeys – who has an album called adorable donkeys?