I don't make friends easily. In fact I can count my friends on one hand. I'm too shy, too weird, too quirky for most people. So when Tony and I moved into our small house together I think I needed Di as much as she needed us.Di was a high school teacher. She was passionate about the kids and teaching. She taught me to sew and to cook things I would never cook. I taught her how to make packet gravy and how to laugh at herself. Together Tony and I taught her to not take herself so seriously. Tony corrupted her on her 30th birthday, which was the funniest thing I have ever seen and shall remain a closely guarded secret. We had water fights, tickle fights, Tony and I broke into her house and rearranged her home and labelled everything with post-it notes. She stole our car and pushed it down the road all by herself. Di welcomed us into her family, we played cards with her and her mother Ann, we had barbeques with her family and celebrated the births of her niece and nephew.
She was my best friend.
She took the photos at our wedding and held me as I cried over the appalling treatment dished out by my Mother-In-Law. She celebrated the births of our first two childen with us. Aunty Di was known to yell at them just as loudly as I did when they didn't clean their rooms. She smuggled Baskin Robbins icecream up to my hospital bed the night before I was due to have cancer surgery. We laughed and joked so much she got kicked out.
All Di wanted was a family and we celebrated with her when she finally nabbed the man of her dreams. We then grieved with her when they found out that he couldn't have children. I remember working at the shop one day and she came in and told me she was pregnant...with TWINS! I was so excited. Jessica Ann and Lily Grace came into the world but Jessica wasn't strong enough and went home as an angel.
It was about this time that we drifted apart. Life took us in two seperate directions, she to be with and start her own family, Tony and I to continue with ours. We rang occassionally, we caught up, we moved on but we always knew she was there.
***
The phone rang one morning and Tony groggily answered it. I remember he sat up and spoke a few words then hung up the phone. He looked at me and said, "Di died this morning..." I couldn't and still can't believe it.
Di and her husband Charlie were expecting their last child. Di had suffered a miscarriage previously and this was their last attempt to expand their family. She went into labour and excitedly told Charlie to get her Mum and said to him, "Our baby is on its way!" Charlie went and got Ann. Ann came into the bedroom, her eyes met Di's and Di passed away.
***
I attended her funeral with the largest amount of people I had ever seen. The church was full, the seats outside were full, there was standing room only. In only a few short years we had gone from blowing bubbles at their wedding to mourning the loss of a beloved friend.
I still grieve to this day. I will be driving and a song will come on the radio and I tear up. I can't listen to Vanessa Carlton singing "A Thousand Miles" without losing it. I have to turn the radio off. I hurt, my heart hurts and I wonder why God took her back. I was so angry at Him for such a long time, not only for taking her but taking her unborn baby. That smallest of coffins made me so angry. I think of how much she is missing, all the Mothers Days, all the Birthdays. And it breaks a little piece of my heart every time.
Di, I love you, I miss you, I never got to tell you how much you mean to me.
C
