for DeAnna Ballou
Didi is dead. She died on a trip to Disney World with her husband and four children, her mother and her father. She collapsed outside the park. She died in the ambulance en route to a hospital. She died of an infection. She contracted the infection after a tubal ligation. She was checked for just such an infection. The doctor missed it. She was 31.
Didi is dead.
It is 2005. I am living in a haunted house outside Traverse City, Michigan. I am holding the phone to my ear. Didi is dead, Christine tells me. My bones seemingly dissolve and I crumple to the floor. My tailbone hits hard. Seconds tick by before I realize I am holding my breath.
When? I ask. Two years ago. Chris's voice cracks. Two years ago, she says again, and I found out just now.
Two years ago. That means that we missed the funeral. We missed the gathering together with Didi's loved ones to celebrate her life. To mourn her death. We have been robbed.
I imagine the funeral in a humongous Catholic church. People fill every possible seat. People fill the aisles. People are congregated outside, listening to the service through the open doors. Every single person is crying. That's the kind of person Didi was. She wasn't famous. She wasn't rich. She wasn't a heroine. But everyone who met her fell in love with her. And then never fell out.
I met Didi in my college Sociology class. We were both juniors. People called me hippie chick. But she was a hippie princess. She had long, wavy red hair. Not strawberry blonde, but an almost purple red. And it was natural. She wore long, calico print broomstick skirts. And her boots. How I coveted those boots. Didi and I used to joke, "I would f--- for that car," whenever we saw a '60s Mustang convertible. Well, Didi, I would've f----ed for those boots. They were calf-high suede boots that laced up the front. Hippie boots. She wore them with her broomstick skirts. She wore them with jeans. And she looked so cool.
She wasn't beautiful. She was pretty, but her nose was a little too bulbous, her teeth a little too rabbit-y, to qualify her as beautiful. Still, she had that X factor, that certain unnameable something, that drew my attention every time she entered the room. I couldn't look away from her. I admit it--I had a girl-crush. When we finally made eye contact after class one morning, I was embarrassed. I was sure she'd noticed me staring. I was sure she could see I was crushing on her and assume (mistakenly) that it was a sexual crush. But she smiled and said hello as if I were a long lost friend. We talked in the hallway for a few minutes, then we discovered we lived in the same quad, so we walked back to the quad together, talking all the way, and a few minutes later we ate lunch together, picking up our conversation right where we'd left off. We were friends from then on.
I was nervous about introducing Didi to Chris, my first and best college friend. Chris had already run off two of my boyfriends. But Chris adored Didi as much as I did. We became a threesome. We ate meals together. We cheered together at football and basketball games. We partied together at Wayside on Oldies Night. We watched countless movies together, both at the local theater and in our rooms. We had sleepovers together, and yes, there was pillowfighting.
But what I always remember when I remember Didi is the time she and I celebrated Un-Valentine's Day.
It was the Valentine's Day that Didi and I were without boyfriends. All day long, deliverymen paraded through the dorms carrying bouquets of red roses and heart-shaped balloons. Half a dozen girls that lived on my floor flashed their new engagement rings. Even Chris, the one person I could count on to never leave me alone in any situation, confided that she purchased a lace merrywidow that she was going to wear under her coat to her boyfriend's dorm that night. So to cheer ourselves up, Didi and I purchased a few girly drinks and declared that we were not leaving my room. We toasted singlehood, clanked our berry wine coolers together, and cranked up the MTV. We howled along to Joe Elliot and the rest of the boys from Def Leppard, using our wine cooler bottles as microphones: "Love bites. Love bleeds. It's bringing me to my knees." We agreed Joe Elliot was one of the hottest men in rock ever.
"I would so f--- him," Didi said.
"Me first," I said. We laughed and clanked our wine coolers.
The more we drank, the louder the TV. The louder the TV, the louder our singing. But the dorm was empty. Even the RAs had dates. So there was no one to complain about our after-hours noise. We slid across the floor in our pajamas, like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. We shook our hair and swung our hips. And we laughed. Oh, did we laugh.
Eventually the wine coolers ran out. We climbed into our beds with pleasant buzzes and sang "Love Bites" until we fell asleep.
Honestly, Un-Valentine's Day with Didi was the best time I have ever had on Valentine's Day. I guess it's as corny and tacky as the holiday itself. But there it is.
Chris and Didi both graduated and got married before I did. Chris and I kept in touch, but I got tired of leaving phone messages for Didi that she never returned. So I stopped calling her. I guess I should regret that we drifted apart. I don't. For two years, Didi was there whenever I needed her. I hope she would've said the same of me. After we graduated, we just didn't need each other anymore. That's not bad. It just is. Do I miss her? Yes. All the time. Every time I hear a Def Leppard song. And every February.
Excuse me while I crank up my Hysteria CD.
Didi is alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQSkIFhuli0
