Sue

I lost one of my best friends last week. It was a tradition that my mother and I came Christmas Eve and New Years Eve and hung out/ got drunk her and some of her old lady friends. I show up to the nursing home Christmas Eve, and turns out Sue died two weeks ago... yeah, it sort of ruined any Christmas spirit I had in my body. She was a beautiful lady who died at 61. She was in a nursing home the last 10 plus years of her life. MS made her a quadralpelegic, a prisoner in her own body. I met her when I was 14, a freshman in high school. In my high school we had to do service hours, 40 of them, but I was just in a hurry to get out of my house... any excuse would do. I taught her how to use her computer, but it was more then that. Every week, some weeks more I would come and visit. She had a special headset that let her control the mouse and even let her type. It's sort of funny how I have met certain people that have had more impact on my life then any real member of my family ever has. Sue was one of those people.

Sue didn't let the world crush her, even when it should have. Her husband put her in the nursing home. Her husband of 25 years put her in a nursing home. Her husband of 25 years put her in the nursing home, promptly divorced her, never saw her again and then married her best friend. Yet she still trusted me... I regret I have not visited her a lot these last few years. It makes me very sad. I just need to remember all the lessons she taught me, how beautiful her attitude was despite her circumstances. She still loved life, still played bingo every chance she could at the nursing home, still loved her grandchildren whenever her sons got around to bringing them (not often enough at all). She taught me what little I know about boys, and listened when I told her about all the crap that was going on in my life. She went on despite all the crap, and so can I ..... She was there for me when nobody else was.... I will miss her. I will always remember the important role she played in my life, and that I can go on, no matter what happens.