Loss
when we lose people, in friendships or in the greater scheme of Life, we mourn the loss of them, but also there is a mourning of ourselves. I am a different person, different facets of me are highlighted or fade out with every person in my life. Losing her, someone so significant, I feel erased. And I feel like I am fighting to not let her be erased. Just because she no longer draws breath doesn’t mean she wasn’t this amazing person. When she and her husband used to watch me, everytime I went over there - which was daily - it was like they threw me a little party. They had lost their daughter a few years before, she had cancer and passed in her early 30’s, younger than I am now in remembering the story. And they always said that I was like their new daughter come to remind them of the joy they had lost and to bring them new happiness. And so I would arrive, from the age of six weeks, premature infant with so many health problems, until the age of 11, every day, performing and singing and giving them a show. Reading stories to them. Rebelling in ways that charmed them both. They had the easy road of being the grandparent figures. They didn’t have to discipline, they just enjoyed. It seemed that no amount of living room cartwheels, impromtu musical numbers, or lightning fast chatter could annoy them, instead it was just delight. So much of how I became who I am and how I push for music and art came from those hours with them. I feel like my foundation as an artist has been erased. I barely know how to move forward knowing that she is gone as my witness to where I came from and how I grew into me. I have no moorings. Lost, adrift, and alone in an airport at 5:24am.