Each of the pictures above are of me… at various times in my life… from the ages of 12 to 34.  In none of those pictures was I happy with my body image… or with my relationship with food.

As with ALL people who have had a “food fight” in their lives, I look back at several and think, “What was I thinking?”

My food fight started when I was VERY young.  I remember family parties and h’ors deouvres.  I’m thinking I was probably around five or six?  I remember my mom telling me to wait until guests got there.  I remember disapproving looks as I’d reach for my 565th cheese and cracker.  I wanted ALL of it!  I had an unfillable hole…  and I just couldn’t stop eating…. ever…

When I was nine, I remember my first diet.  I put myself on it.  I brought a can of tuna fish to school every day.  I never liked tuna fish… not then, not now… but I decided that was how I was going to be thin.  You see, by the time I was nine, I was bullied quite a bit.  I was already wearing a bra and boys would snap it.  Being well endowed never makes you look thin… especially when you’re trying to cover them up all the time.  My mom took me to my first nutritionist at my request.  We went through diet plans there.  It worked, for awhile.

Mom did her best.  There was never anything but healthy snacks in the house.  We had plenty of celery and apples.  But I didn’t want that.  And my parents were at work when I came home from school when I was in middle school.  So I’d bake…  I’d bake pans of cookies and eat ALL of them.  I’d make loaves of bread— quick breads, and breads with yeast.  I’d slather butter on them and eat the entire loaf…  hating myself and what I was making myself look like more and more… but not stopping.

The next weight loss came after I broke my femur.  I was in the hospital for five weeks and at home in a hospital bed for five weeks after that.  I was completely bed-ridden…  and COULDN’T get to food… so my mom was in charge of my intake.  I specifically remember her giving me one M and M at a time… and I could have about ten.   HA!   I wouldn’t mind someone doing that to me today!   So, I dropped three pants sizes in those two months!

At the end of 8th grade, I went to my first diet “program.”  It was at Diet Center.  I rode my bike up there by myself to meet with a counselor.  I ate nifty things like beef heart.  My mom prepared it for me… and it worked…

because all diets work…  including the one I did in college…. the one LOTS of girls did in college.  In college I discovered the art of vomiting and laxatives.  I fluctuated between 218 pounds and 244 pounds through all of college… so, clearly, it didn’t work THAT well.  I went on fat free diets, and 1000 calorie a day diets.  I worked out ALL the time.  I taught aerobics classes.

All this time I mostly surrounded myself in silence.  I was BASICALLY happy… but I was fat… and teased… and it led to ALL of the things it usually does for fat girls.  I had no REAL love interests in my life, but I did things and allowed things to be done to me that I wish I hadn’t because of my self confidence… or lack of… with my weight.  Some people who I considered my closest friends were hurtful to me when it came to my weight… thinking they were helping.

As I reached true adulthood, things got completely out of my control.  For breakfast at work, I’d have two kolaches.  For lunch, I had a slice of pizza and fries.  On the way home from work, I’d stop at McDonald’s.  There, I would buy a double quarter pounder with cheese, a six piece McNugget and a GIANT fries…  this was bigger than a supersize.  It was a large drink container full of fries.  I ate this before I got home…  When I got home, I would order a large pizza AND eat the whole thing.  This was a typical day.  I went into debt because of food… and I ballooned to 356 pounds.  Sometimes I’d still have bulimic episodes, but I wasn’t committed. (ha).

It had to stop.  I was 32 years old and completely out of control.  I went to Methodist hospital and entered a program where I could only have 800 calories a day.  It was four shakes… NO food.  And I did it for seven months… and lost over 170 pounds.  Sure, my hair fell out, my gallbladder got removed, and I couldn’t poop… BUT I felt great.  I’m not kidding.  I felt excellent.  Now, I could shop in regular clothes stores– this was actually anxiety producing and overwhelming to me.  I had NEVER been able to shop in regular stores in my ENTIRE life.  How do people do that?

And the SKIN… oh my goodness the skin… I couldn’t wear shorts, really… or sleeveless because it was just EVERYWHERE…  giant curtains of skin…  Part of me thinks that’s why I gained back most of the weight…  but, in reality, I know…  I know it’s because of my food fight…

Because it started again.  I’d join weight watchers… and then leave.  I’d do the cabbage soup diet, then stop.  I’d work out seven days a week… I’d workout none… My food fight had started again.

This time… I had an accomplice.  I’d met my husband when I was a size 10.  But… together I had shown him the great “joy” of ordering the large pizza AND the cheesy bread.. and that it was perfectly normal for each of us to eat half of it.  I had shown him if HALF a cheesesteak was good… well, then a whole one was much better.  Now, he was no little guy when I met him… but I helped him balloon on up with me.

What he didn’t know is that I had started it again.  I had started sneaking to Whattaburger on the way home… I’d grab one little cheeseburger before I walked in the door because I was so hungry…  If I went out with a friend after dinner, I’d go ahead and order food again.  I mean, what my friend didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him…And the 20 pounds I had gained back turned into 100… turned into 150… and there I was…  losing my food fight again…

I post this because it’s real.

I post this because it’s deep and personal and embarrassing.

I post it because I’m not the only one.

This was not just a matter of willpower.  This was something deeper…  some pit for some reason that I have never been able to fill in my entire life.

This is not a battle I will ever stop fighting.  I will ALWAYS want to eat the cheeseburger AND the whole pizza.  I will always want the loaf of bread with the butter all over.

But it’s over.

I’m not going to do that anymore.

It never brought me the happiness that it promised.  It lied to me the whole time… That trance like state I’d go into as I was binging was never a time of happiness.  It was always shame and regret.  And it’s over.

I know that I’ll have to fight it forever… but I also know that I have already won.

I have more appreciation for Rembrandt than I do Picasso. I have as much appreciation for pretty pictures I see at Garden Ridge pottery as I do for both of them.

I understand that there is a difference between fine art and the guy who is drawing caricatures at the county fair,  but I don’t really understand what makes one artist more talented than another.

I know nothing about the selection of media, the types of brushes that are used, the pencil strokes and level of difficulty and all of the things that go in to creating a masterpiece.  I know that I enjoy looking at Jackson Pollock’s paintings, but I also have no idea why he’s considered a fine artist… I know nothing of his skill. And really, if it looks nice, and I like it, what difference does it make?  Why is one $3,000,000 at Sotheby’s and one $49.99 at Kirklands?

I know that I love Tchaikovsky… but I couldn’t tell you why. And, truth be told, if you were playing it in the background and immediately followed it up with Beethoven, I don’t know that I could tell the difference, but I know that I like both.  Then again, I like Air Supply, too…  So should I be allowed to judge?  Why is one art and the other isn’t… or at least isn’t as highly respected?

I adore good writing, and I do have some understanding of that.  This is why even though I found the concept of a BDSM novel intriguing, I couldn’t ever get through more than thirty pages of 50 Shades of Gray.  I wanted to like it.  I just couldn’t.  There was no art in that novel.

This occurred to me as I was thinking about friends I have who are confused by my love of wine.  Many think that 1.  I’m a heavy drinker who uses wine as an excuse to get drunk because it’s classier than the shots of goldschlager I did in my 20’s or 2.  That I am a silly snob who has been duped by propaganda.

Actually, I don’t think either of the above is true… so I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is that I enjoy so much about the whole wine experience, and I’ve come to the conclusion that wine is art that takes a lifetime to appreciate.

I may not truly understand why the Mona Lisa is considered one of the greatest paintings ever made and would cost around 790 million dollars today, but I DO understand why Domaine de la Romanee Conti is widely considered the world’s best pinot. (The average price per bottle is 13 thousand).

I may not be able to tell you the difference between Monet and Manet, but if you gave me a French burgundy and a Sonoma pinot (which are the same grape), I’d have a relatively good chance of telling you which is which just by sniffing it.  I’d have an idea of whether it’s an old wine or a new wine just by looking at the edges in the glass.

And I know FAR less about wine than the majority of most of my wine loving friends.

I’ve only been trying to learn about wine for about 12 years now.  It started in my late 20s.  At that time, I was more alone in my crusade.  Most of my friends didn’t really care about wine except liking the taste of it.  But I really wanted to go to California for my 30th birthday to go to check out where some of it was made and learn more about the process.  I wanted to try all different kinds of grapes in different price ranges every time we went to the store.

I went to Napa/Sonoma (which are quite different areas) for the first time for my honeymoon when I was 34 and I was COMPLETELY hooked.

I learned then that, in most of your premier wines, the grapes are picked by hand and only the very best grapes are used.  In fact, the whole process is done by hand.  It’s incredibly labor intensive.  You never just smash grapes and leave them to turn into wine.  There’s so much more that goes into it.  Some wine makers only want to pick on certain days of the month because of moon cycles and how they can affect… Some pick in the dark, some pick in the early morning hours.  They plant different grapes in different types of soil with different sun exposures. They worry about things like hang time and the size of grape clusters…

Every part of wine making is this delicate balance… it’s art.  What type of water do you use?  How do you choose to ferment–concrete?  stainless steel?  oak?   How much time does it spend on the skins?   What are the rules of your AVA?  and on… and on… and on…

So… in the decade that I’ve been interested in wine, what I’ve learned more than anything else is that I know nothing…

I’ve learned that the whole process, from dirt to bottle to what type of glass should you use to drink it, is fascinating to me… and all of those things have involved countless man hours and painstaking trial and error.

So when someone asks me how I can spend $80 on a bottle of wine when I can get the same grape for $7.99, it’s hard for me to explain to them about the art… and how I can appreciate the art in the bottle.  BUT that I’d LOVE a $7.99 bottle of wine that had the same story as my $80 bottle…that was created out of art.  I get no joy in spending more money on wine…I just understand WHY some is more expensive.  And much like I wouldn’t pay for a Picasso, I rarely buy an expensive wine… but I appreciate why it costs what it does.

And the truth be told, I simply don’t LIKE Boone’s farm anymore.  As I’ve learned, my palate has changed.  If you give me an $8 wine that has been open for four days, I’m not going to like it.  I wish I did… but I can’t read 50 Shades of Gray after learning to love the words of  Annie Dillard; and I don’t like to drink Menage a Trois after tasting a wine crafted by Nils Venge.  It’s not about the price… it’s about the art.  Menage is bulk grapes… the good and the bad ones go in there…  it’s filled with grape extract to give it a sweeter taste for the casual wine drinker.  I can taste all of that, and it doesn’t make it something that I’d enjoy savoring.  I’ll slam it like goldshlager…  but that’s not what wine is about to me anymore.

There’s an art to all of it…. the soil, the pruning, the picking, … how much time do you let it sit in the barrel?  how much time in the bottle before release?  Then there’s an art to it AFTER that…  how much does it change as it ages?  What is the bottle variation?

Heck, there’s even the art to tasting!   You can taste wine as a professional.  You can recommend wine professionally… and those are two DIFFERENT jobs.  People become world renowned wine TASTERS.  There are entire books devoted to the art of tasting.

I love the whole ritual of wine… the sniffing, the swirling, the swishing…  the discussion of it…   how it makes my food taste,  how the food makes my wine taste.  I love the appreciation factor of it, and I love to share my appreciation with others.

…and if it occasionally leads to a buzzy feeling reminiscent of my goldshclager days… well, I’ll call that a bonus.  🙂

As I’ve been sitting here doing my morning Facebook musings, I’m thinking about all of the reasons I’m so incredibly grateful to my mom and dad.

That picture in the top middle…  that is Mom and Dad just about a year before they got married…  17 and 21 years old.  December, 1968. They had no REAL idea what was happening next.  Bottom left:   January 1970.  Now they were living together for the first time in their own apartment.  They had no car.  Dad had to hitchhike to the train station every day to get to work.  Mom was in school and working.  Every Friday their cousins would pick them up to grocery shop, and all they got to eat was hotdogs because everything else was too expensive.

Three years later they had me… and two years after that, my brother.  We lived in a small, fourth floor apartment.  Mom only had enough money to pay for the washing machines, so she’d have to haul the clothes upstairs in the baskets and hang them out to dry.

In 1976, six years after they got married, we moved into our first house.  My brother’s room was as small as a walk -in closet.  We used a ping pong table as a dining room table.  Our car had rusted out in the bottom, so there were holes in the floor…

Some of these stories I remember…  some of these stories I’ve been told.

Second house in Illinois: Dad has a newer job, another promotion.  The house is bigger, nicer.  Mom works three days a week and is a full time mom.  She volunteers in the schools on her days off.  She is the room mother and the lunchroom mother, and everything mother.

Third house, New Jersey:  We live in a subdivision with our own lake.  We have two cars now.  Dad has to commute more than an hour to work in Princeton every day.  New job, another promotion.  Mom works more than one job now, but still volunteers at the school in her “free time.”

Fourth house, Texas.  This is a big house.  This is the first house that is custom built.  We have a pool.  We have a game room.  My brother and I each have our own bathroom.  My parents have built this amazing life together basically from scratch…They have been married for 20 years.

…and this is where my THANK YOU comes in…

Although my brother and I were allowed to use cars, my parents claimed that they would NEVER give us a car.  (They did, eventually, my senior year of college.  They gave me a minivan with no air conditioning and failing brakes.   BUT it got me through my last year, and I could use it as a trade in.The car they gave my brother was two years older than mine 🙂  )

When we were in high school, we were EXPECTED to work.  My parents paid for our basic food, clothing, and shelter, but if we wanted anything else… that was on us.

We were expected to have a plan after high school… and that plan did NOT involve living with Mom and Dad.  After graduation, my brother and I did not return.  And it was HARD.  We lived in not-so-nice apartments and houses…  We drove cars that were less than reliable.  We did not have extra money.  We had to work more than one job.  We could not afford to live alone.

…and we have our mom and dad to thank for showing us that is how it’s SUPPOSED to be.

And sometimes my mom and dad fought… and sometimes they were very serious fights about very serious things…  but they worked it out… They showed us how marriage is supposed to be… how you’re supposed to treat each other.

They changed and they grew and they struggled together because that’s how life is supposed to be.

And they showed us how you’re supposed to be in the world.  They took in strangers when they needed a place to stay.  (People and animals alike).  They have open minds and open hearts.

I thank them for their expectations for me.

I thank them for showing me that it’s okay to struggle.

I thank them for letting me see that life and marriage are full of horrible and hard things SOMETIMES… but that it’s worth it ALL of the time.

I thank them for teaching me to be considerate and compassionate.

I thank them for who I am now and where I am in life now because I know I couldn’t have done it without the way that they raised me.

That picture in the bottom center–Dad is 69 Mom is 65.  They’re in house number 5 now.  and have been married for 47 years.   I still learn from them all the time. Heck, just this week I asked my mom to go to a movie, but she couldn’t because it was my parents’ day to volunteer at the food bank.

Thanks for showing me ALWAYS how it’s supposed to be.

One of my very best friends in the entire world died on December 7, 2016.

Six weeks later, I went camping.

I should have seen Shawn on this camping trip.  That’s Shawn in the picture above… the one on the right… the one on the left is NOT him, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

That’s Shawn camping on the right… maybe in 2013?  I’m not sure… they blur together.  You see, this year was the 23rd of the trips.  Shawn has missed two.  The first one he missed because of business and other things.  This one he missed because he died.  He won’t be at another.  Ever.  And I can’t quite get used to it.

But WE all were… the rest of us Camping Cuhrazees… including Shawn’s wife, who told us that Shawn’s brother Mark would likely be making an appearance, too.

I was thrilled!   I couldn’t remember for sure the last time I saw Mark.  I know I met him when he was about ten years old… a silly, sweet, quiet kid playing video games.  I remember him on those early camping trips… He was just 12 years old, hanging out with all of us in our early 20s.  We were raucous and silly… and oh, how he looked up to his big brother.

I remember him at his mother’s funeral, when he was still in high school… and how fast he had to grow up.  He was a baseball player, and I remember the sight of all of those boys who came on the school bus: all those high school boys with their solemn eyes, wearing their Sunday best… and Mark… standing there…  wet eyed but strong.

I saw him in the years after that, too…  the same way you see the family members of friends.  You run into them at the occasional party, the important events… but I probably hadn’t seen him in nearly ten years.  Now, he’s a husband… a father… in his thirties.

And when he stepped out of that truck…

My heart clenched.

I couldn’t catch my breath.

I felt like I saw a ghost.

That’s Mark on the left, yesterday, standing in the exact same place his brother stood just last year.  Looking so much like him I couldn’t even think.  The voice was wrong… the smile wasn’t the same…  but so many similarities…

And then I walked up to him..  His arms went around me…  and there it was…

Shawn…

I lost it… I tried to hold it together the best I could… but with my face against his chest…  and turning my head to the side to see just the top of his bicep.  Oh my God…  he felt just like Shawn… just like him…  He held on the same way Shawn did… a little bit longer than I was really comfortable being hugged… a little tighter than most people hug me…just like Shawn.

I don’t think I said a word when I walked away from him.

Mark stayed for the afternoon, and I was glad.  He’s much more reserved than Shawn… a quiet observer, not at all the center of attention.  But I couldn’t look too long.  It was like staring at the sun.  I’d feel myself watching the gestures and seeing Shawn, and I’d cry again.  But I was so glad he was there.

When it was time for him to go, he hugged me again.  Into the chest that was Shawn’s chest I let the tears fall, and I said “I miss your brother.”

He hugged me a little tighter and then pulled back.  He said “Yeah, there are moments.”  Then he stopped and shook his head and said, “Shawn had the words.  I don’t have words.”

I smiled at that… because he’s not Shawn.  He is Mark, and I really, really want to get to know Mark better.  Mark will be coming back next year, he said.  He’ll be bringing his wife, and I can’t wait to know him as an adult.

But this time… on this camping trip…

As soon as I could,  I walked away from him and collapsed into sobs.  Those arms… that chest… those hugs… Those were Shawn’s.  That was being close to Shawn.

I’m sorry if Mark felt awkward this time.  Many of my friends had trouble looking at him… even though we’ve known him for a quarter of a century. Yesterday, it was just so much Shawn

I loved that Mark was there… but it is a wide open wound…  and all of us likely felt it because we were there in SHAWN’S place… the place we had been so many times with him before.

Then, this morning, as we were all packing up to leave, my friend, Heather, was talking to me about Mark… and how hard yesterday was.

She said, “You know what I think it was…  I think it was like we had a chance to say goodbye to Shawn.”

I think she’s right… but…

I don’t know that I’m quite ready for goodbye… and I really want to get to know MARK for who he is…

but I won’t be sorry if those hugs ALWAYS feel like the hugs did yesterday.

Carrie Fisher died today.  Star Wars:  A New Hope was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I was four, almost five.  I don’t know that I could really follow it, but I sure thought Princess Leia was pretty.

I never really got into Star Wars.  I’m not a big sci-fi /fantasy fan.  I liked Carrie Fisher, though.  I appreciated how blunt she was when addressing her mental illness and alcoholism.  I liked some of the other characters she played.  I bet her mom and her family are really really sad.  I’m sorry she died.

George Michael died on Christmas.  I used to tape Wham’s videos on my VCR;  then, I’d watch them frame by frame because I thought George Michael was so beautiful.  There were moments that I was just blown away by how good looking he was.  I think I even took a picture of the TV at one time.  When I broke my leg in 7th grade, I remember “Careless Whisper” played over and over again on the radio during the five weeks I had to stay in a hospital bed in my living room..  As I got older, I started to appreciate him for his talent and his philanthropy as well.  I’m sorry he died.

Prince died on April 21.  I was a HUGE Prince fan.  I owned almost every song he ever did.  I had 1999 and Purple Rain on vinyl.  I watched his movies.  I recorded his videos.  His songs are the backdrop for large parts of my life… I have had many groups of friends since my love for Prince began, and every one of those groups of friends had a connection with him.  I have read biographies about him.  I have watched dozens of interviews.  I’m sorry he died.

Sadder than their deaths, however, to me, is the mean-spirited shaming in which people so gleefully seem to engage on social media.  … the almost instantaneous jokes and mocking of the dead.  I know, I know… “too PC”   “If you don’t like it stay off of social media”  “everyone is entitled to their opinion”  I understand all of that…  I just struggle with the judgment and the cruelty of other human beings.

All of those people I listed above were human.

As John Donne so eloquently said:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. ”

So, yes, I am sad because I lost those people because they are part of humanity…

And because I have memories of each of them… some more than others… but memories nonetheless…

Next come the people who say “I can’t stand this celebrity worship…  you don’t mourn the death of soldiers like this…”

Completely untrue…  I do.  Tell me the name and the story of the soldier and I mourn him as well.  See, I know that Debbie Reynolds is Carrie Fisher’s mom…  I know that Joely Fisher is her sister.  I know that Postcards from the Edge was loosely based on her life.  I don’t know those things about a soldier.

Regardless, who cares what or whom I mourn?  I say “My friend died.  I’m sad”  You say “I’m so sorry, prayers with you.”

I say, “Prince died.  I’m sad.”  You say  “You are a shallow, ridiculous pop icon worshipper.”

How callous.  How absolutely shallow YOU are to not even allow someone the dignity of feeling an emotion.  How lacking in empathy you are to take someone’s empathy and make it a fault.

Do I mourn the death of Prince the way I mourn the loss of Shawn (one of my VERY best friends))??…. no, I don’t… but it’s not NOTHING.  I feel SOMETHING.  I feel the loss of art, the loss of memories, the loss of another human being. And you know what?  Shawn LOVED Prince and he LOVED George Michael and he LOVED Star Wars… so the loss of each of them makes me miss Shawn even more… and makes me feel closer to HIM through their deaths.

So this blog won’t change anything.  You will continue to shame each time someone dies, and you think someone else shouldn’t feel emotion about it.

But shame on YOU for being so self absorbed that you can’t sympathize with a fellow human being simply because you aren’t feeling the emotion yourself.

Yeah, I know… the headline is clickbait… and I suckered you in to reading a whole lot more… You can scroll down to the red part if you just want the proof of afterlife story.. it’s there, BUT if you want the rest of it…

Ah, dammit, Shawn…  Just looking at that picture right now fills me we love and the desire to shake the beejeezus out of you.  Could you have prevented your death?  Heck, I don’t know… but a heart attack at 42 MAY have been enough to suggest that maybe you should stop smoking unfiltered cigarettes…  But really, with a death by heart attack at 44 were you long for this world, whatever you did?  I’m not really so sure.

The thing is that it sucks for the rest of us.

You see… people want to SAY that everyone who passed away was special… I mean really TRULY special. Mmmmmm… not so much.  In this past year, I have lost two EXTRAORDINARY young men.  I lost one of my husband’s best friends, and best man from our wedding, Scott Muennink: a man for whom more than 20k was raised on a go fund me account in a matter of 48 hours, a man for whom the church was so packed for his funeral that extra rooms had to be opened.  Scott was 41 and had an aortic aneurysm.

Here I am… six months later… and this time, Shawn is mine…

And by “mine” I mean he belongs to everyone whom he ever met.  I met Shawn at 19… and he was larger than life and so full OF life it was almost unimaginable.  Shawn was never your ordinary guy… EVERYTHING was a production…  He was over the top in every possible way.  Going shopping with him involved his putting on a costume and going in character from store to store.  You couldn’t watch a movie with him because he had to rewind it 27 times and repeat all of the lines.  A trivial pursuit game with him took about four hours because he had to walk around and tell you EVERYTHING about the question without answering it… and it generally included songs and impressions.

Shawn would come stay at my house for weeks… unannounced… and make himself completely and totally at home…  And it wasn’t just MY house where he did this.  My friends all say the same thing.  He was smart, funny, beautiful… vagabond.. renegade… You name it… that was him.. and all true and real…

I had a routine with him… Every time we’d call one and other we’d start the conversation with “Why are you always bothering me??   Every time the phone rings… it’s always you!”  And we’d say this even if we hadn’t spoken for a month… then I’d tell him the WORST puns possible because he hated everything about them and loved everything about me. EVERYONE had their routine with him… whether it was their own special language, a flurry of insults…  he made everyone feel like the most important person.

He was the guy who would go visit MY PARENTS even when I wasn’t at home.  I mean what teenager does that?  He was so sad when my parents moved from Houston to Austin that he insisted on going over and saying goodbye to the house.  (My parents completely returned the affection, by the way, they drove hours out of their way just a few weeks ago to go see him in Arkansas.  I’m so glad that they did…)

I could go on for HOURS about Shawn… We went to Costa Rica together, to Vegas… I was in the hospital to see his son, Aiden, days after he was born.  I was there when he proposed to his partner on her 40th birthday. He came to see me when I was in the hospital for a week, spent the night before my wedding in my room with me.  He was MINE.  He was ALL of ours… His town literally put their flags at half mast for his death… My whole group of ragtag misfit friends has our own personal story of Shawn.  And he’s gone…

Sort of…

And here’s where the supernatural begins (Part One:  See Part Two Further Down if you Only Want the BIG ONE).

On the morning of December 7, that’s right, a day that will live in infamy, because Shawn is dramatic like that…  Heather called me on my way to work… and, through tears, said the simple,. crushing, two word sentence, “Shawn died.” 

It took me a few minutes to cry… for the tears to come… but they did.

I walked into the building and asked a friend to take my duty that morning… and I walked into the office to see if I could get a sub because “one of my best friends died.”

They tried… but they couldn’t.

So I explained to my students… and I taught.

Sometime in the middle of 3rd period my phone turned on… out of nowhere…  I was in the front of the room, but my Pandora station came on…  Lionel Richie was singing.  As I made my way across the room to turn it off, I looked and saw it was the Barry Manilow station.  (Yeah, whatever… I love Barry Manilow).  I didn’t think anything of it at that second.. but it started to settle in.  Barry Manilow?  Really?  The same Barry Manilow that Shawn and I sang LOUDLY in his mother’s car playing “Daybreak” from an 8 track as we drove from Baylor to Temple when we were 19?  The same Barry Manilow who Shawn flew in from Little Rock to see with me and my parents at the rodeo in Houston when we were in our 30s?  That Barry Manilow?  Shawn was in my room… and I knew it.

You see…  Shawn was VERY into music.  It was the centerpiece of his life.  He would sit for HOURS and play song after song…  Stevie Wonder, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Beastie Boys…  It didn’t matter… He wanted to SHARE them with you.  He showed me his original Prince albums and his middle school fan letters to Olivia Newton John .  He LOVED music… and he connected with people through that…

…now I LOVE this little story… but it ain’t nuthin.’

The big one happened Friday night, December 9.

My misfit group of friends had been communicating back and forth with each other on our private Facebook page.  You see, there’s a group of about 15 of us who have gone camping together every year in January for the past 23 years … But we’re more than that.  It goes much deeper.  We’re the island of misfit toys.  We have been beside one and other through thick and thin… and we are teachers and cake decorators and boat dispatchers and barge managers and doctors and college graduates and high school dropouts… We are SUCH a range…  and Shawn was our light.  Shawn was the center.  Shawn was what bonded us all together… and we are SO much closer than friends.  We are SO much more than family.  We are soulmates… All of us… in one mismatched bunch….soulmates… And we love each other and fight with each other and are annoyed by each other… but it is AMAZING… and our light was GONE.

So Susan said “Facebook is good… but we need to be together…”

And so we were…  we were all together at Susan’s house on Friday night.

And we brought Keystone Light because that’s what Shawn drank.  And we got Brother’s Pizzas because that’s what Shawn ate.  (That’s actually another story….  but EVERYTHING with Shawn is a story… this would go on for days if I told them all).  And we carried a picture of him around as we did all the things we did with Shawn.

We had him with us  as we drank our ritual “bucket.”  And he was part of our night…

And Heather told us he had been cremated that day… and that there would be another memorial for him in Arkansas on Sunday.

Then we sat outside around a firepit that he had made when he stayed with the Wares for one of those random weeks… and we set his picture up in a chair in the circle with us.

Susan tried to put on some music… and then IT HAPPENED.  (Yes, this is the big “it.”  No more teaser… This is how you know…)

Susan was trying to get “Big Dog” from Beaumont/Port Arthur on “I Heart Radio” because that’s the station we always listen to when we’re camping…  only it wouldn’t come in…  Her phone kept spinning saying “searching” and it was just playing clips of random songs… One after another.  So Susan tried to turn the volume down on her Bose speaker.. but no matter how many times she tried to turn it down… it got louder.  ESPECIALLY when Shawn’s lifelong friend, Alex, called to be part of the party.  Then, Susan pressed mute… and the volume stayed loud.

I’m not sure what those original song snippets were…  I remember Mark and Kajsa singing with one of them.  I wish I remembered now, but everything below happened without another random snippet:

And “Play that Funky Music White Boy” came on.  We all laughed and said, “Now that’s a Shawn song…” and it played until the line “Play that funky music ’til you die…  ”  Then it stopped.  I don’t think we gave it that much thought… Yet…

Next, “Dust in the Wind.”  I felt the tears fill my eyes as I listened to the lyrics of the song and realized how poignant it was at that moment.

(Let me interrupt this narrative BRIEFLY by saying that there were several of sitting around that circle who have experienced a communication after death…  so I don’t know if our willingness to accept has anything to do with it… BUT…)

The songs didn’t finish… they played for random amounts of time… I then heard Heather saying “Really?  This song?”  and I realized it was Guns and Roses doing “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.”

Some of us were starting to believe Shawn was with us at this point… You see, not only were the songs playing for random lengths of time, but also Susan’s phone was STILL spinning with “searching”  and there were no commercials… no DJs… just music…  So Katie says, “Wow he sure knows how to go out with a bang.”  And then… Bon Jovi “Blaze of Glory” comes on just seconds later.

Susan says, “If Prince plays, I’m going to lose it.”

There is barely a break before the opening notes of “Purple Rain” play… and, at that point, we ALL break…Every one of us is sitting and crying.

As the song is ending, Susan puts the phone and the speaker in front of the picture of Shawn and all of us join for a giant group hug.  As we are returning to our seats, before the end of the song, it switches again… “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen… and we all start to laugh.

I walk up the stairs to go grab a drink… and the song stops and is interrupted by “Another One Bites the Dust.”  I turn and look at the picture of Shawn and say “That’s morbid.”  The song stops… and goes BACK to “Fat Bottomed Girls.”

We sit there through other other songs… Motley Crue, Zac Brown Band. Freebird…  and each one seemed to have a connection to a person in the circle.  Mark Kean says,  “You didn’t play Ozzy Osbourne” and goes inside the house…  Before he returns, the sound of Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s voice singing “War Pigs” begins…  There have still been no commercials.  There have still been no DJs. No one has touched the phone…

Mark says that if Van Halen were to play that he’d burn his Rush CD’s.  (Several in our group mess with Mark about his undying love for Rush).  A few moments later the song “Rapper’s Delight” begins.  You see, on our camping trips Mark would often regale us with the fact that he had memorized most of the song… and rap along with it.  This time, just a clip was played…  and then … it turned off…  just seconds later I heard the unmistakable squeal of a guitar and “Eruption” was blasting from the speakers.  “That’s VAN HALEN!”  I yelled…

Mark IMMEDIATELY went back to his car…  returned with CD’s in his hand and looked to the sky.  “A deal’s a deal, buddy…” he said.. and threw his Rush CD’s in the fire…

I looked at my husband, Richard, the skeptics’ skeptic… and I said, “You’re seeing this, right”  He said, “Yes.”   I said “You know he’s here.”  He just shrugged at me.  I said “The SIMPLEST explanation is the right one, you know.”  He said “I don’t believe in this.”  I said, “Okay… that’s fine…. Explain what you’re seeing.”  He said, “I can’t.”

The phone starts up again…Bob Marley “Three Little Birds.”  You know… “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright…”  Mark Ware has a relationship with this song… but again…  the LYRICS.  Heather says , “Okay…  Shawn…  I want Led Zeppelin….”  Again, the songs go at a random length… sometimes with gaps between… sometimes not…  The whole time Susan’s phone is spinning… searching….

A song starts I have never heard before…

Chris smiles and says, “Oh yeah… this is a good one…”

I ask “Who is it?”

Heather says “Led Zeppelin… it’s called ‘Thank You.'”

So I listen….