Eulogy Part 2

Pam was my sister. We might not have had the same blood, but we were thrust together as babies and shared clothes, toys, brothers, mothers, fathers, food, crayons, hobbies, dreams, and fears. Even if we had other friends, interests, paths, we had an unbreakable bond that reeled us together no matter where life took us.

This is twice now that I have gotten a phone call that irrevocably changed my life. I am going to say that I must not have learned much the first time, because it is equally baffling the second time. I feel like everything has been ripped out from underneath me and I have to restart my journey all over again, but this time one of my senses has been taken away, and maybe one of my limbs. My car is out of gas, and I think a storm is coming. Also I don’t have the right clothes. And the first person I would call for advice is gone.

I knew where Pam stood on everything from the Easter Bunny to pineapple on pizza and I can’t believe that we aren’t going to grow old on our front porch drinking tea and remembering how much fun we had as kids, how wild we were in our twenties, and how hard we worked in our thirties and forties.

It’s been a week now since the phone call. I wrote a tribute to share at the service. I sat with friends and family who have their own memories and love. I took in the photos and flowers and sympathy messages. It doesn’t feel real. I can’t cry. I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about little things, like her purple Donny Osmond socks, and reading Snoopy comics on beach towels in the backyard. I just keep waiting for her to call me on the phone like none of this has happened. But it did happen.

When Pam and I were nine or ten and we were at the playground on the schoolyard. There was one of those old metal jungle gyms that didn’t really have a name. We were determined to walk up it without using hands. We practiced, one at time, talking turns spotting each other, first walking up one side, then across the flat top, then down the opposite side. It took a lot of balance and concentration and falling on that thing was no joke. We practiced until we had a little circus performance of starting on either side, passing at the top for a high five and finishing on the opposite side. We probably could have set our own TikTok trend with that stunt. I don’t remember showing off our skill to anyone else. We knew we did it and that’s all that mattered. We always had our own private brand of brave and crazy.

I have a habit of treating grief like a supervillain, staving her off with strong, sharp swords, forcing her to retreat into the shadows. Too bad she doesn’t stay there. I am trying to accept grief as a rider on this journey, but I kinda hate her and I don’t want to be friends.

Pam has been with me on every stage of life up until this point. I used to think our bond was formed by our shared histories and all our memories, but it was deeper than even that. I think at our cores we both shared a gritty, determined powerful courage that carried us through challenge after challenge. We learned to be fighters together. We may have chosen different battles, but we constantly converged and drew strength from each other. It never occurred to me that one of us would fall before the other. So, my journey continues and instead of my brave and crazy soul sister, I get to ride on with Grisly Grief. Pam would laugh if I told her that and say, “Well, that sucks, but that’s how it is.”

Pam always kept things real for me. I know I am strong enough to go on to the next stage, even if Pam is somewhere else, because I have reels and reels of memories and stories. One night soon, she will show up eating cotton candy in a dream, and maybe I will wake up laughing. Or maybe crying. It doesn’t matter because Pam has always been there for all my laughter and tears and she will always show up for me because she is in my heart and soul forever.