Please don’t nitpick about my grammar in this post. I usually proofread, but this time I just can’t. I need to type and vent.
I met my friend Alicia in 1987. We hit it off right away. Same sense of humor. Dry wit, “I don’t give a shit” attitude. Her friends met my friends and we all matched up well.
I admired her for her ability to talk to anyone and get a group of people riled up to do something fun. I admire her party hosting abilities, poker playing skills and good aura. Things didn’t really get fun until Alicia got there.
She had a long term boyfriend that she loved, but knew he would hold her back in life. I admired her strength in doing what was best for her and turning away from a man who loved her, but not enough for her.
Alicia, met, dated and married a hard working home builder. He was handsome, good hearted and a bit shy at first. Yin yang.
She had always wanted to be a mother, yet things weren’t working in the fertility department. After many tests, hormone injections and such, the doctor suggested she lose some weight. Through the years Alicia’s weight had steadily increased and she embarrassingly admitted to me one time that she was closing in on 300 pounds.
She didn’t take the easy route. No weight loss surgery. She changed her eating habits, took up kick boxing, sweated her ass off and lost 120 pounds in just over a year.
Almost immediately, after reaching her weight goal, I received an email one morning of a picture of a positive pregnancy test. The baby she fought hard for was finally a reality!
Baby Jesse was born and he was long and lanky like dad, but had dark wavy auburn hair and deep set eyes like hers.
She overcame boundaries in her career too. her big regret was dropping out of high school in 10th grade. She grew up poor and no one in her family really expected her to have lofty goals, but she eventually got her GED, went to night school and received a bachelors degree in business and got an excellent position in the corporate world.
I remember she was terrified the first time she had to make a speech in front of a couple hundred colleagues. She sucked it up, overcame it and became an old pro at job presentations, making off the cuff funny toasts at company parties and she even spoke at my wedding and had the crowd laughing.
Her son Jesse, turned 9 years old last week. Alicia wrote a post on Facebook the night before his birthday along with a selfie of the two of them together. The post said, “Jesse wanted to stay up past midnight to feel himself turn nine tonight. He asked me, Mom? Do I look different now?” He is the best thing that has ever happened to me."
So I said she had me fooled. Yes. How? Well, she isn’t part of the demographic. They say most suicides are of the very old or very young. Alicia was 47. Women who kill themselves usually use pills or poison. Men more commonly use a gun. Alicia used a gun. Considerate of her to blow her brains out in the bath tub so not to make a huge mess. She had a large group of close friends she had known for decades, yet none of us ever had an inkling she was suicidal, let alone depressed. At all. There are usually signs. She had just enrolled her son in a new school. Was getting new carpet installed in her living room next week and was looking forward to a relaxing boat ride with friends this weekend.
I’ve known people before who have taken their life. I’ve seen signs of depression in them and had reasons to think they might possibly one day end it all. I even had the unfortunate task of discovering one friend asphyxiated in the garage. In fact, Alicia was the one who sat up with me all night while I cried about the loss of my friend and how gutted I was finding him that way.
Now, the son she practically jumped through hoops to conceive and loved like crazy will forever celebrate his birthday with his moms date of death looming over him a few days later, every year for the rest of his life.
Just in a hazy, stunned fog all day. She fooled me. Never in a million years did I see this coming.
