Jody’s anniversary…

It has been six years already since Jody passed away. She died. Just like that. I glanced at my phone, there was a text from her son, “My mother has passed away”. Whaaaaaat? The phone slipped out of my hand and onto the cement floor of my workplace. It was a Monday. Sandy Hook had happened on Friday and the first thing I thought was that it had broken her heart. It had broken us all really. Something inside all of us was broken by that carnage.

So now the phone was also broken and Jody was gone and I was just standing in the parking lot wondering how to call anyone when I had no phone numbers. I drove home and found some numbers and called and learned that she had argued with her son. She stormed to her room and that was all anyone knew until she was dead in her bed. That damn medication. I had warned her. She had promised. Well, it’s done now.

It has been six years and I am here without my gal pals from childhood. Jill left us in 1994? I think that’s right? Anyway, there has been a lot of loss. I sometimes wonder how this solitary life came about? The ones that were here when I was young and figuring it out are gone. Jody and I reconnected after a thirty year separation. It was happenstance. I was at the hair salon getting my hair colored when I heard a voice behind me say, Jami PEURALA? We were again fast friends. Both single, both living in Chicago, both “friends of Bill W”.

We had thirteen years of re-becoming very close friends. We were going to do The Grand Tour together for our sixtieth birthdays. She was a few weeks away from fifty nine on that night. We were both January babies. Me a Cap, she an Aquarius.

So, on the anniversary of that day I went to get my nails “done”. It’s something Jody would have approved. A good mani/pedi. She chided me for not “doing” my nails. She’d say, “At least put a clear coat on them” when I protested that I couldn’t really understand the point as I was always into something with my hands. A manicure lasted about as long as it took to walk out of the salon. Well, Miss Jody, now I actually need to have help with my nails. So they are “done”.

Then of course I came home and got into something with my hands. I made those spritz cookies. I thought damnit! I had been lamenting a cookie making buddy. That went over like a lead balloon. Jami, no one is coming to make cookies with you. Just make the cookies. So I did and they’re fine and I’m inspired to make some more. So there! Who cares about a manicure.