Happy 53rd Birthday, Best Beloved

Happy 53rd birthday, Muff!
Another year has passed, and I still miss you, though you've been gone over 5 years now.
Yesterday I went to see a movie with my friend Jenny Z, whom you would have liked a lot, had you met her, and while it was a movie based on a comic book series (X Men, Days of Future Past) I know you would have loved it, and you would have laughed and enjoyed the spectacle, the special effects and the gorgeous muscular backside of naked Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) as much as I did.

Jenny has had to move, with her husband Alex, to North Hollywood in California because the news studios have left their operations here in Seattle and removed to LA instead. She's never lived anywhere but in the Puget Sound area, and I imagine she's feeling a bit displaced and lost. Rather like you and I when we went to Clarke, and then when both of us tried to navigate our way through grad school in Cambridge, Mass. Those were lean and scary times, and I often didn't know where I'd be living the next day, or where I would get my next meal. But a nice couple named Betty and Bob King rescued me from the streets and treated me with the same kindness and compassion that they would have treated their own child. They even got me a plane ticket to Florida so I could figure out my next move. The fact that I managed to wrangle the authorities at Lesley into fronting me the money to finish my final semester and graduate is nothing short of a miracle, because I was under so many problems at the time I didn't think I would survive.

You were smart to realize that the whole Simmons gig wasn't working for you early on, and you left and went on to work your way up into a program at the community college and your dream job of working at the Marshalltown Public Library. It took you years to get there, but you succeeded at last and you were doing so well, with only one blot on the map of your life, and that was having found someone to love and marry and have a family with. I remember you crying about that over the phone to me, and wishing that you could find someone to love you, but when someone did try to get to know you and court you, you turned him away out of self loathing. Because you didn't feel that you were beautiful enough or perfect enough to deserve the love you craved, you would never accept another persons instinct to care about you, especially if they were a guy.

But I know in my heart that you were always more than worthy of love, and happiness, and that the only thing keeping you from it was yourself. I tried to tell you, time and again, that size makes no difference in the love game, that just as many guys were attracted to me when I was large as when I lost 100 pounds and looked "normal." Sex is all in the head, I discovered, and if you think you're sexy and you are open to being in a relationship and having adventures with a guy, they will instinctively know that and they will be drawn to you. Sometimes you will draw the wrong kind of guy, and sometimes you draw the right kind, depending mostly on how you feel about yourself. Learning to love myself and learning to feel sexy was a huge part in my dating and love life back when I was in my late 20s and early 30s.  Learning to spot the frogs from the princes was also a big lesson, but I learned it. I was sad that you never seemed to learn that, or to appreciate how beautiful you were at every stage of your life, when you were thin and when you were a larger woman. I wish you could have known how amazing you were, how bright, how funny, how witty and wise in so many ways.

You were an awesome best friend. Truly better than I could ever have hoped for. I only wish I could have helped you learn to love yourself, and to allow others, the right others (princes, not frogs) to love you, too. But you had something that I never did, a treasure beyond price, in your large and loving family. You had brothers who adored you and a stern sister who loved and respected you, and a mother who was magical, a writer and a sage who is an amazing parent, valuing each of her children for their gifts and insights, and never abusing them as "friends" or resident marriage counselors, as my parents were wont to do. You had beautiful nieces and nephews, and you lived near your family right to the end of your days, surrounded by love. You were a member of St Henry's Church, where you had a second family to love and support you as well. It makes me feel less aggrieved when I remember that, and when I recall that BJ, your best friend and brother, was the one to find you, and to pray you home to a loving God, at whose right hand you sit, I am certain. Happy birthday, best beloved.