A friend passed away. This same guy, once in the summertime, while I was drinking and smoking with him and some other friends at his place, came out of his house wearing one of these red Calgary Flames shirts that are given out with a certain beer box. I laughingly exclaimed, "that's my shirt!" So he grinned and said, "ok!" In an instant, he whipped that shirt off and handed it to me. Then he went back into his house, put on another shirt and came back to rejoin the party. He is missed.
This recent passing brings me to think of a different friend I had known many years before through an old boyfriend in weed times. Back in those days, I did not talk to this guy directly but someone else spoke to him instead because he was "running the show" so to speak. Years later, I met him while standing outside the bar having a smoke. All the trappings of old had been stripped away. We talked for awhile and then he said he was leaving. He invited me to his place. I was drinking at the bar still so I stayed there and he said that he would buy a cooler and if I wanted to drink it later then he would save it at his house for me. I ended up going there later on and he'd stashed that cooler in a closet in his house for fun and he told me to go ahead and look around. He could still walk then. I went and looked at his whole house, eek, except the basement! I found the cooler and I sat there and drank it. We talked about many things and by the time I left there we had become fast friends. I went to visit him often and we went places and he did play bingo for a time and then he passed away at his house.
Last year a friend I'd met through a different friend died of alcoholism. I received a text and got the address and invite to the funeral is how I found out she died. I really appreciated that. I'd gone to visit her that last time we drank together before I quit and got lost in the neighborhood where she was visiting. It took me around an hour or two in order to find the place and in the meantime, my phone had powered out and I had to plug it into some random outlet on the side of a house. I didn't want to get caught doing this; a drunk girl wandering around the neighborhood taking electricity. It was chilly fall/autumn weather in Calgary. I eventually found the place, there were three of us, she usually lived in Edmonton at the time and she'd brought a friend from there. We stayed at that location and had drinks and danced for a bit. Then we all three decided that it would be a good idea to go to the dance club a little more than a block away to buy some smokes and more drinks across a busy intersection. At one point she or I or the other girl slipped and so then we all lay down on the ground giggling, to look at the stars, on purpose! We did not all fall at once! After we bought our smokes and drinks we went back to the house and talked our faces off and laughed until we slept.
Not to dwell on these what feels like losses. I have a friend who lives close to my hometown who was in the depths of alcoholism as can be and fell on a curb and had quite nearly lost her mind and then she sobered up. My other friend was rocking back and forth on her couch and moaning while saying, "ow, ow" and she went into hospital and had quite nearly lost her mind when she quit drinking. These are ladies who had "almost lost all" who returned to the land of the living.
Every day is a time for me to reflect and come to terms. Something great can and does happen; the sun rises and sets every day.
Thank you for reading.
As ever,
Lisa
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| "The Meeting" by Lisa L'Heureux |
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