A Familiar Loss of a Different Kind

On Monday, morning, October 9, 2023, my dear friend, Buffy Sue, passed away unexpectedly in her home.

I have lost friends and family before, numerous times.  This loss, however familiar in some ways, is unique and different compared to those in the past.  This feels like new territory in some respects.

During my adolescent years, the internet was just starting to really become common and accessible.  In my tenth grade year, I joined a website for teens with journals, games, polls, messaging, and so forth.  It started out as somewhat of a social experiment in my mind, as well as an exciting way to explore new territory with people my age, all over the globe.  I had a MySpace page, where I found friends and new music, taught myself some basic HTML and photo editing skills, downloaded ICQ and AIM messengers, and continued to make connections.  It didn’t take long before I was fully immersed in the website I first mentioned, making friendships and relationships that many adults at the time would tell you were not and could not ever be real, true, lasting friendships.  It seemed absurd that you could have a relationship with someone you had never met. I grew up in a tiny town with amazing “real-life” friendships, as I would have referred to them at the time.  These online friends were no substitute, they were an addition to my tribe.

That website was the beginning of my online journaling (now called blogging) endeavor, and I wrote almost every day.  At one point, I had journaled every day for one or two years.  I honestly cannot even recall. I had friends that read daily, commented daily, and I reciprocated in their journals.  As we got older, we started chatting, emailing, writing letters, sending text messages, and sometimes even meeting in person.  While it may seem shocking to believe, I have made some of my most trusted friends on that website, and they know me, the real me, and love me in return, and we have had these relationships for twenty-some years.  They’ve been by my side, figuratively speaking, through high school, high school graduation, boyfriend breakups, college, college graduation, engagement, wedding, marriage, infertility, deaths in my family, births of children, betrayal from my husband, divorce, single-parenting, covid, overcoming, and so many more events in my last twenty years.

In 2012, after giving birth to one son in 2010, then losing a pregnancy in 2011, I became pregnant again and was due with our next child in August.  At the time, I was working an in-home daycare with one of my best friends, with a husband who worked long hours out of town and was away a lot.  I joined a pregnancy app on my phone, which came with message boards.  Those message boards were a bit rudimentary, and it wasn’t long after that an August 2012 Momma Facebook group was formed.  So many women around the globe joined that group, and we shared so much of our lives together.  That group still exists, and while it’s not as frequently utilized, we mommas are there and we still love each other.  Some have been fortunate enough to meet in person, and many of us developed deeper side friendships with mommas we really connected with, and have kept in touch in multiple other ways.  When we had our babies, we were there.  When they turned one, we were there.  When we have had triumphs and joys, we were there.  When lives turned unexpectedly upside down, we were there.  It is a core group that you know is going to be there even if it’s been a year and you need to rant about something related to motherhood, you need prayers or advice for any other topic, or you’re in a crisis and you don’t know what to do.  It’s been such a joy watching our children grow up together, even if we are not physically together.

This momma group is where I met Buffy Sue.  

Buffy Sue was absolutely my closest friend in that group.  She brought me such joy.  Her laughter was contagious and when she would get laughing, I may not even understand really what she was laughing about (because sometimes she would be laughing so hard her words didn’t sound comprehensible) but it would get me laughing, too.  She gave great advice when I needed it.  She said stupid funny things when I needed comic relief.  She sent me pictures and videos of herself and her daughters frequently.  She told me all about her coffee shop, when things were going well, when things would unexpectedly break down and cause messes, when things were going splendidly, all of it.  I always told her I wished she could deliver MY coffee, but joked that it would probably taste a little funky by the time it arrived, so she would just have to drink what I would order in my honor.  She blessed my children and I in big  and little ways, from surprises in the mail, to silly letters, and much, much more.  She helped me see straight through tears of confusion and anger when my marriage was falling apart.  She reminded me how strong I was, and how I was never really going crazy even if I thought it might be the case.  She encouraged and supported all my creative endeavors.  She was a champion for everyone she loved and so many other she barely even knew.  She would do anything she could to better someone’s life- not just mine.  I tried my very best to do the same for her in her life, and I can only pray that I made an as much an impact on her as she did on me.  As I’ve been reading tributes to her online, I am blown away, but also not really surprised, by the impact she made on her community, but even further, around the world.

When I read last night that she was gone, it felt like I was being punched in the chest.  I turned off my phone screen multiple times, feeling like I was just imagining what the screen said.  When I realized it was true, I wept quietly in my room, away from my sons.

You see, they didn’t really know Buffy.  They knew of her, because I would show them videos or photos sometimes when they’d ask what was so funny, but they never really met her.

That’s when I realized, in a way, I had never really met her, either.  Well, not in person, anyway.

That thought struck me in the strangest way, as I then wrestled with my own thoughts.  That lasted much of the night, and I cried myself to sleep, still feeling sort of strange to be feeling as sad as I was.

Today is my day off from work, so after I took my two littles to elementary school, my oldest and I carried out our day-off tradition.  I drive him across town to middle school, but on our way, we stop at a coffee shop of his choosing, and we play “coffee roulette” where I let him order a drink for me (so long as it is not straight up black coffee or espresso) and he chooses a bakery item for himself.  When we were picking up our items from the drive through window, I started to feel tears welling up in my eyes.  As we pulled away, I blurted out to him, “one of my online momma friends died this week.”

He was stunned.  He stared at me for a moment before he said “that is so tragic and I am really sorry, mom.”

I told him how I didn't want to burden them with my loss, and how I nearly broke down this morning when I realized if I sent her the goofy Snapchat photo I was sending some friends of our cat trying to get involved in non-cat-related activities she wouldn't ever open it anyway.

I began to tell him about Buffy and all of her great qualities.  I told him how she was really “Steve the Elf” a couple years ago who sent us tickets to For King and Country’s Christmas concert locally.  He laughed about it a while and then told me how she sounded so cool and it made all the sense in the world that we were friends.

“We really were friends,” I said, trailing off a little.  

I finally began talking aloud about all the conflicting thoughts I had been feeling the night prior- how could I possibly be so sad when I had never even been in the same room as her?  How could I be devastated knowing I wouldn’t get to hug her in person when we still hadn’t had that chance?  How could she possibly have left such a lasting impression on me when she was so far away?  

He and I then talked about how it absolutely makes sense that I was so sad.  She was real.  She was a real friend. She knew me better than many people.  Just because we had never been in the same place geographically, she was with me so often, in a few second spurts, day in and day out.  We shared each other’s triumphs.  We shared sorrow when her dad died.  We laughed when we would say or do stupid things.  We shared music.  We shared a friendship.

He and I then had a great talk about how you really can create life-long, true, deep relationships with people you have never met, but how you also have to be careful in letting people online into your life sometimes, especially with sensitive information.

I explained how I have two groups of real-life-online-friends, those who are still in my life from high school, and those who came into my life as a momma, and are still in my life today.  He knows I have amazing friendships with some of these.  He began asking me questions about many of them, and I got to tell him stories about how one friend and I would write a fiction blog about a world where we were actually together, and another friend and I would fill up a notebook with multiple letters before sending it off, and how I met one in Nashville, and stayed with one in Brooklyn, and met up with two in Omaha, and one came to Sioux Falls.

He told me I was a really great friend.  He wiped away my tears and reminded me he loved me.

As he got out of the car and I drove away, the song “Banks” by Needtobreathe came on the car stereo, and it brought me right back to Buffy, and the type of life she lived and the way she loved fiercely.

I was watching the sun rise above the trees, alone again with my thoughts and my sorrow.  I had finished my coffee, and remembered that my favorite local coffee drink, the Honey Bee Latte, was half price at that time in the morning, and I had enough pocket change in my cup holder to stop and grab one. I wasn’t quite ready to go home and sit with my thoughts yet, because my emotions were still swirling.  So, I stopped and ordered my favorite, one I had told Buffy about long ago, and decided to go to the outdoor campus here in town and go for a walk.  I dove deeper into my thoughts and emotion and decided that I needed to write.

I always find that I need to write.

This time, it was a little different.

I realized that I could search all over for a physical place where I felt my friend and I were together, but when it came down to it, the living room of our friendship was really the internet.  It was in writing, mostly.  I knew I needed to come sit on the virtual couch of our friendship and feel the emptiness in that room, and embrace the love I had for her in this life, through the screen in front of me.   I walked a couple of miles until my coffee was gone, with the gentle wind blowing through the trees, thinking about the songs she might send my way on a day like this, what joke she would make, and if her Honey Bee Latte would be even tastier.  I believe it would have been, no contest.  

So here I am, writing my heart out, wondering what she would say if she saw all of these words before us.  She would downplay her own significance for a while, but tell me how much she loved me, and turn it right around and build me up, because that’s what kind of champion she was.

This sorrow I feel is like that of any other friend or family I’ve lost, but different in that unfamiliar ache of the in-person hug I won’t get on this side of heaven.  As I sit through the grief, I realize this won’t be the first time on this path, because I am so blessed someday, potentially (unless I go, first) lose many more I love so deeply in this way.

My sorrow must only be a fraction of the sorrow felt by her mother, her siblings, her husband, her beautiful daughters, and her countless friends.  I’ll be thinking of them often and praying for their piece as they live out the immeasurable grief I’m sure they must be feeling.  I’ll continue to read the tributes to her online, and count myself so fortunate to have a treasure like her in my lifetime.  

I know you’re singing with the angels, Buffy, love.

Until someday,

-Me

He was my dream come true.

 On August 15, 2006, the sweetest little pup was born alongside a handful of siblings. A few weeks later, I met him, and called him my very own. 

When I was a younger girl, I dreamt of one day having a beagle of my own. I knew that if and when that day would come, I would name him Wendell. 

Wendell Rupert was a belated wedding (he was born ten days after my marriage began) and early birthday gift (he came home shortly before my birthday that year. From the moment I saw him alongside his momma, he had my heart. 

I remember the night I drove him home, as he snuggled up in a blanket, crying softly on occasion, but otherwise sleepy and content. When he came home to our apartment, he was less than thrilled with kennel life, but adjusted nonetheless. 

It wasn't long before Wendell started blessing me with memories. He ate a phone book, and chewed off and ate the corner of my "Complete Works of Shakespeare" one day. 

Another night, when he was still a puppy, I had set a pizza on the counter in the kitchen to cool. Somehow, this little puppy made his way onto the counter and ate half of it.  We learned quickly that Wendell had a vertical jump like none other, and by the time he was full grown, he could reach a treat approximately six feet in the air.  I'm his later years, he once jumped on the kitchen counter while I was at work, opened the cupboard doors, chewed open a bag of sugar, are a bunch of it and spilled the rest. Then, while I was still working, the sugar made him sick, and I came home to regurgitated sugar "pancakes" all over the floor.

Wendell, like many dogs, loved the snow. He would run through snow that was higher than he was and never seemed to grow tired of it. 

He also loved cuddles. His favorite place was in the bend behind my knees if I was laying on my side. He would read his head over my legs and snore away soundly. We spent countless hours like that, and he kept me the most dear company on nights when my former husband was away for work. 

He loved riding in the car, specifically the back window. I always wondered why he preferred that spot. I wonder if it's because he could see so much more from up there.  Occasionally, I would brake, and he would roll down into the seat, come say hello with his tail wagging excitedly, and then hop right back into the window. 

He, as a beagle generally is, was a bit mischievous and also so very smart. He knew the difference between right and left and would high five the correct hand that you would call out. He would sit and shake, jump and even crawl. He would try to fake us out and turn his head really fast when we asked him to roll over, but he couldn't fool us, and eventually would give in and do the trick  He couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to be inside or outside some days, and I would have to go back and forth and back again trying to help him decide.  One time, I had him hooked up outside in the backyard a while, and then realized he had gotten free. A while later, I received a phone call from someone across town who had found him. "He obeyed the traffic laws and waited to cross the street until it was clear! He even used the cross walk!" The gentleman on the other end of the line, who was keeping him safe in his truck at the hardware store, explained as he called the number on Wendell's tag. 

Wendell was my constant companion, and after a while, we brought home a girl before, Vivian, that we rescued from someone who had not cared for her well. She was super skittish for a long, long time, but Wendell loved her, as did we. Before our children entered our lives, Wendell and Vivian had become parents two separate times. Wendell did good with all of his busy kids, just like he always did with human children in his life when he lived with me.  He really just loved everyone he met. He loved our kitten that lived on the farm with us, too!

Unfortunately, Vivian needed more freedom than we could give her after she had her babies, so she found another family that could provide that for her, and we let her go on and love them. It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make. 

Wendell stayed by my side though. He continued to love me fiercely and well through my first pregnancy. In fact, he loved me so much, he once peed on my leg to mark his territory when we were with a group of family and other dogs. It was so gross, but equally hilarious. 

Wendell was there when we brought home our first son, and loved him instantly. He spent many hours curled up beside the baby, especially if the baby wasn't feeling well. He wouldn't leave his side. As our son grew, they became playmates and partners in mischief. Our son would laugh hysterically as he would hold a piece of his food in his high chair and Wendell would jump up and get it, or he would feed Wendell dog food, piece by piece, and giggle like crazy.  They were best friends. 

My heart broke when we couldn't bring him with us, after having him at my side for six years, as we moved into a larger rental to prepare for the arrival of our second baby. I tried everything I could to find a place that would allow him to come with us. I was eternally grateful that my dad was able to foster Wendell for a while, and I could continue to love having him a part of my family. When my dad also needed to move, a friend of my cousin brought Wendell and his daughter home, and she was able to foster him a while. I was so fortunate to be able to see him still while he lived with them. Because of this friend, my youngest baby, my daughter, was also able to meet Wendell in her lifetime. 

My heart continued to break when life took another turn and the friend could no longer keep Wendell in her home, and without other options, he was surrendered to the humane society. 

My heart began to mend when I learned that a family in the area had found him and brought him home. That would be his final home, where he spent his final seven years. The most wonderful part about his new home, the haven he was blessed with, was that they shared photos and stories of his later years online, so even though I had to let him go, I was still able to see him.  I have been grateful for this family every day since they brought him home. 

One of my life's biggest regrets, although not entirely in my control, was that I was never able to have him come back home to me. It was always my hope and my goal to bring him back home. My own world was falling apart before he was in the humane society, and struggling as a single mom to three kiddos at the time and trying to provide for us just proved to be a little too much and kept me from fulfilling that dream. I have spent countless days and nights crying out in sorrow knowing I failed to see that dream through, still able to feel his presence behind my knees while I laid awake in bed at night. I've spent hours wondering if I broke his heart as much as I broke my own, and wondering if he missed me as much as I missed him. The guilt and remorse was in unbearable for quite some time. 

I have loved Wendell every day since he was born, even when he wasn't at my side. 

The portion of my heart that held him closest shattered this morning when I read that his time on earth had come to and end. He lived a long and beautiful life at nearly sixteen years old. I hadn't been able to hold him in my arms for years, but I have carried him with me always.  I find comfort knowing he lived a long life and provided me with countless memories, but I know I will still shed a few more tears in his honor. 

Rest in Peace, Wendell Rupert. You were my dream come true. 

Testimonial Stones

These are my memorial stones.

I'm building a memorial.  It's not the type of memorial you might imagine when you think of someone making that statement. I won't be using flowers, gold, bricks and mortar.  I'll be using stones, a set of small stones. They'll be placed in a jar or a vase, and displayed on a shelf in my room when I'm all finished.

Yesterday, in church, the message was given surrounding the book of Joshua, chapter 4, in which God parted the river and they were all able to cross.  In the midst of this miraculous chaos, God commanded them to pick up stones and to build with them.  They were commanded to do so, so that when they were seen, their children and others would ask them what the stones were for, and they were to recount the miracle that was bestowed upon them and testify to the greatness of God.

In fact, we were given the ability to take home our own stones from church.

As I was sitting there paying attention, I decided I wasn't just going to take home a bag of random rocks.  I was going to go home and select rocks myself.  Part of this was because I like the idea of being able to control the color pallet, of course.  But, beyond that, I decided I would likely need more than 12, and I wanted them to be smooth, so eventually, I could write on them.

I took it upon myself to start working on a list of the bits of my testimony.  Our pastor gave many ideas, and I included them all on my list because in one way or another, they all fit.  Included in this list are: Salvation, Healing, Strength, Overcoming Power, Revelation, Faithfulness, Miracles, Provision, Protection, Favor, and Family.

That's a pretty good list to start, I would say.

I will admit, I haven't been having an easy time coming up with words to add to the list that fit my particular testimony and aren't already somehow included in those words, but I am trying.  I want my memorial to be as personal as possible.    There are so many elements that I want to be able to include.

And why be so specific? Why label them?  Well, I want it to be personal, as I said, but I also want the ability to be able to take them out when I'm in a funk or on a dark road, feel like God isn't near, feel the enemy attacking, or just need my memory jogged when I am feeling down.  I want to be able to touch the stones, see the words, and really have a concrete vision of all that God has done for me.  I want to be able to add to it as I see fit.  I would love to see that memorial grow.  I will enjoy my children asking what the rocks are for someday and explaining all the ways that God has been so good to me.

But what about you?  

I challenge you to build your memorial. Maybe you'll use rocks.  Maybe you'll use words on slips of paper and tape them to your mirror.  Maybe you'll write them in your Bible. Maybe you'll comment here and share.  Maybe you'll tell a friend. Maybe you'll just pray your thankfulness privately.

Regardless of how you build your memorial, I really urge you to sit and think about your testimony and all of the amazing things God has done for you.  He has done amazing things for EVERYONE.  Salvation is a big one.  When you've accepted Christ, your testimony is solidified, as you are wiped clean and you are a part of Him. That's HUGE.  Maybe you've overcome an addiction. Maybe you've conquered a disease. Maybe you've been given children.  Maybe you have the most wonderful siblings or friends in the world.  Maybe you've simply been blessed with day after brand new day to take deep breaths, find a reason to smile, and face the world.   No matter what, there are stones to your memorial, and there are layers to your testimony.

My testimony is written all over my blog, if you feel like diving deep into my words.  

But my rocks... well, some of them will say-

Salvation

Spencer

Collin

Norah

Family

Friends

Healing

Deliverance

Strength

Grace

Mercy

Overcoming Power

Revelation

Hope

Faithfulness

Miracles

Provision

Protection

Favor

Purpose

What about you?