Mourning pt 2
I don't have many photos of Lily. As beautiful as she was, she never photographed well. The photos usually were missing something.
Found this photo of her while going through my Lilla tag, since she used to be called Lilla. Technically that's still her legal name. This is the best photo I have of her, though she hasn't worn glasses in years to my knowledge. Anyway, I started looking through the Lilla tag because I was trying to remember how long I've known her. I knew her online in 2004, but it was clear from some of those entries and from memories that I knew her for years online before that. I wish I could remember when we first met online. We didn't meet in person until 2007. I had twelve years of knowing her in person. I wish I'd had ten times that much time.
Been crying off and on for the last three hours. I doubt I'll be able to sleep any time soon. I'm actually crying as I write this right now. I keep having to stop so I don't choke. I've been actively avoiding my usual coping methods though. I don't want to take my mind off my mourning. I don't want to distract myself. I want to remember. I want to feel the pain.
In the spaces where I've been calm enough to do other stuff besides crying, I've been looking for positive memories of her from my LJ. Each one is like a fresh jab in the gut, but I didn't want to stop. Ran out of entries, though. Or tagged ones, at least. I might read old Facebook messages or dig up my Yahoo mail account again and try hunting for messages there. But later. I'm running out of energy.
I don't want to go to sleep. Probably will in an hour or three, though, anyway. Maybe I'll dream of her.
Sometimes I've been getting up to walk around and talk to her spirit.
I don't think I've ever mourned this hard for anyone in my life. I've only ever known two people in my life who died. One of them was an Internet-only friend I didn't know quite well enough to even cry over. Another was my grandmother. (Maternal; I never knew my paternal grandmother.)
I still dream about my grandmother, though it's been at least 15 years. I hope, 15 years from now, I still dream of Lily. I hope she can still brighten my life in dreams at least.
I think I'm going to buy a lily at the Portland nursery to remember her by, especially since they're perennials. My silly ADHD brain came up with that an hour ago, right in the middle of a crying jag. Great idea, silly brain, even if your timing is a bit weird. Hopefully I'll be able to actually do it without crying in public.
This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1440990.html
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