Aug 18 2008
mourning
This is, oddly enough, the post I was trying to write when I decided I needed to upgrade Wordpress (and managed to wipe out my archives). Flickr wasn’t getting along with the older version I was running, so I ended up writing this post at least four times, and losing it every time.
These are my friends John and Leanne. We’ve known John for a few years, and had only been starting to get to know Leanne as her relationship with John deepened.
Less than 24 hours after this picture was taken, Leanne passed away in her sleep, due to a chest brain aneurysm that took her without warning. She was 27 years old.
The last two weeks have been a blur- we’ve been confronting the uncomfortable betrayal of our assumptions that we’re all going to live to ripe old ages. We’ve been focusing on supporting John, whose loss is far deeper than ours and who wakes up to a fresh hell every morning without her. We’ve been challenging a universe in which someone so radiant and joyful can be taken so suddenly while nasty, small people continue to walk the earth.
Leanne’s friends gathered yesterday afternoon to comfort one another and celebrate her life. It was exactly the kind of party Leanne would have liked to attend- people from all the different areas of her life, together, getting to know one another over a few drinks and her favorite music.
Related: I am well on my way to being the grandma who won’t stop fussing in the kitchen during times of family stress. Being pathologically unable to stop making jokes, I am not so good at words. But I can cook.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Thanks for all you guys have been doing. It’s been a great help. It is odd to wake up without her as she’d always sit there and gently stroke my hair until I’d wake up in time to drive her home so she could walk the dog before work. And I think I might have said it wrong at the memorial, but Leanne died from a brain aneurysm, not a chest aneurysm. And that was a great memorial. I hope she’s proud.