Remember when you first kissed me?

Dearest Barbara,

It's summer in the dreary 2004. Why aren't you here with me? I get the feeling you'd knock me out for wanting death so much. But I remember the most terrible things mixing up inside of me when I realized that you were actually gone. When you left that night, I had the chance to run after you but you were so affected by something that you demanded I stay behind.

I keep imagining you so vividly in front of me. Your soft voice turned hard, your blue eyes, so blue, I know God had put an ounce of sky into your color before you were born. Hot hands as though you drew a fever before you ran away, touching my arm.

I had a dream of you last night. I believed you were alive again for a brief moment. It brought me straight back to the moment I was told you were gone. Gone? What does that mean? Did you go somewhere? Can I find you? Can you find me? The most insanely brutal part is the deafening quiet that never gives me an answer in any way. It crushes me. The disquieting nothing that death brings. The unending, insane logic of religion that tells us to believe when we have nothing to do with it.

All I have right now is my over-pouring sadness. It drowns me. No, not you, Barbara. I can hear you getting all ancy and cranky at me for writing you like this. But, you don't drown me. You uplift me. You save me. My dearest, I only want to know if you are at peace. Safe. Something ineffable inside of me has torn and cauterized into a mess of music that has had its code terrorized. Once, it was the most ethereal, gorgeous, unearthed music you could hear.

Now, it hears like a nightmare. A jumbled mirror image that screeches, shouts, as though it were irradiated and full of white noise corrupted into blank madness.

But, that noise is mine. I still hear a beautiful, gentle day, a sweet time and a lot of loving somethings when I think of you.

You are the love of my life. You are my best friend. We shared thousands of moments laughing so hard our sides hurt, dancing in the rain (which I hated getting wet lol), and just being silent together side-by-side in peace.

Why does the bright lights of summer make me nauseous? Why do I feel so hateful and angry and violent? I want to make your murderer pay for what they did to you.

Ok, Barbara. I'll try. I'll try to be calm. Somehow as I write you this letter, I feel you. You created the most generous warm light when you were alive and when we cuddled close together. I feel you right now as I write these words, somehow. I know it is my emotions dancing around wildly, and weird to think you're here in my words.

Remember when you first kissed me?

Yeah, I do too. I save that memory for my lonely late nights and snooze-alarm mornings.

Your dad mourns you, deeply. For awhile when we thought you were only missing, your dad was angry, too. We were both numb to the grief, the pain, the inexpressible loss.

I remember when we sat down in your room and looked through all your things. It was then I collapsed in the most ugly and bone-deep, marrow-deep, soul-deep sobs. He held me and we cried together.

I woke up from my dream of you today finding the tears following me the same as when I cried with your dad. I felt as though I was petitioning for your soul, your life, your very heart—- as I sobbed so hard, I almost collapsed and fell asleep from exhaustion.

I pounded the floor, slamming my fists down over and over. My tears felt salubrious, yet hard and pained at the same time. No matter how long I cry or how painful the tears are, you'll have to stay in heaven.

For a long time, even after the trial for your murder was over, I found myself lingering over details and mistakes. Why did you not tell me you kissed Jean, our circus friend? Why did you go with Jean to meet your crazy stalker?

I realized that it was to protect me, though I admit I felt betrayed too. Angry. Anger seemed to be my main source of energy and life for a long time.

I was told by my mom that sometimes even if someone that harmed you never apologizes, you can still forgive them. Why, I asked her defiantly, should we have to forgive them when they don't feel sorry?

“Because, the forgiveness is for you. To heal, move on, to process it. It is so you don’t let your anger fester into malevolence,” my mom told me.

I never thought of it before and even after she said it I scoffed it off. I know you didn't like how I hated practical advice to emotional situations. Yet, you didn't like to listen either. Maybe that's why we fell in love. We are both hard-headed.

Maybe you are more hard-headed. I say that and I immediately just thought of how you were bouncing items from my room one night when we were 16, testing literally how hard your head was. We ended up laughing so hard, your dad told us to shut up. You told your dad you had brain damage the morning after. I spit out my orange juice from that!

It was like the laughter carried us through. Made us. Molded us. Even more, those silent moments did too.

I decided to take another walk on the beach after I woke up from my lucid dream with you. It was like you were always alive. I think of Laura from that weird Lynch film, Fire Walk With Me, remember we watched it and we kinda hated it at first but we ended up really liking it?

I listen to that song, Questions In a World of Blue, thinking of you singing that to me one summer night. The music that feels like a nightmare now is back to Barbara—-my Barbara.

Remember when you first kissed me?

Yeah, I do too. I save that memory for my lonely late nights and snooze-alarm mornings.

Love, love, more love, more hugs, more, more, more,

Your Connie