Carolyn, Angel of Mine

Friday evening I dreamt of my dear childhood playmate. When I think of my childhood, I think of Carolyn. She was my neighbor from birth through age 10 or 11. The details escape me. I can still see her angelic face, her soft pale skin and her golden locks. We played for hours on end, played and played.

As I walked in the receiving line the day of her laying to rest, I cried harder than I have ever cried before. It was an uncontrollable wail, a howl that in a normal setting would have been heard miles away and would have commanded help of some kind. But that day, May 29th, 2003, everybody cried. The room was filled with tears, heartache, loss and love. As I approached my dear childhood companion laying still in her casket, my cries were replaced with peace. That was the effect that Carolyn had in life and now in death.

Thinking about the last interaction her and I had is hard. Almost 5 years in a new home, with new friends, we passed in the hall at school. She suggested we get some lunch over the weekend. I can still picture the very hall, the color of the walls, her backpack, my black boots. It was if somewhere inside me, I was aware that this would be my final conversation with her. To remember so clearly. To remember SO clearly.

We never did have that lunch. That will always be my biggest regret. I know that I could not have saved her, Carolyn's life and death was predetermined. But I could have said I love you. I could have reminded her of the way we used to paint her driveway with water and really believed it was paint every time. Or of the million or so times we watched Annie together. I could have told her how I cried for hours the day my dad told me we were moving. I could have just held her hand or her body.

This was not the first time Carolyn has come to visit me. When I lost my baby a few years back she came to me several times. She brought light to such darkness. It was a Facebook post by her brother on Saturday morning to memorialize her 7 year anniversary that jogged the memory of the dream I had the night before. There was no premeditation that led to my dream that night, I am not one for remembering dates. Carolyn came to me, as she has in the past, peacefully and timely.

Thank you, Angel of Mine.

Carolyn was tormented with overlapping mental illnesses that modern medicine could not help. If you know someone who suffers from mental illness and would like to help, please visit the National Alliance For Mental Illness (NAMI) website.