Inside Gigi's World

This picture hangs by my vinyl player. I see it every day and every day it makes my heart smile a little. It’s old, well, older…I don’t know, what constitutes a photo as old? It was taken in the sumer of 2009…sixteen years ago. I was pregnant with my youngest child who would be born a few short weeks after this was taken.

It feels like it was just yesterday but it also feels like a whole lifetime ago. I often find myself going back to this day. It was the first time the three of us had all been home together in years and it would also be the last time the three of us would be together. Thinking about that now makes my heart sting just a bit —sometimes more than a bit. 

I find myself trying to explain to people now what my childhood friendships meant to me, how at the very core, they raised me and guided me and helped shape the person I would become. Sometimes, when a person has been through what I have been through, they understand that and they don’t ask questions. Others, who do not often look at me confused because they were just friendships…childhood friendships at that…that are meant to shift and change and eventually fizzle away into distant memories. How could your friends—especially in your youth—create the foundation that you needed to grow…to survive? Well, let me tell you, if you don’t understand that, then consider yourself extremely fortunate. 

For me, at the very base of it, this was my family. Chosen? Yes., Genetically connected? No. But does that somehow make it any less valid? I’ve never given much thought to genetic links until I had children of my own. What does genetics really have a whole lot to do with families anymore, especially in today’s age when family dynamics are changing and evolving all the time? I am genetically linked to a lot and I mean a lot of people, there are no shared experiences, no love, no late night conversations under stars talking about future plans, there are no inside jokes or notes shared in the hall at school between classes. Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t get completely ripped off in the biological family department, I’m more fortunate than most but still, some of us also have to make our own chosen families and that’s what I did and looking back on my life, I chose well. 

Michael’s birthday is today, he would have been 42. Tomorrow, it is Mary’s birthday and she will be 42. We were in our 20s the last time the three of us shared inside jokes and laughter together. It was the last time all three of us hugged each other goodbye with the promises that we’d see each other soon. Mary left to go back home, Mikey hopped on his flight which landed him to his new home and I stayed behind, growing a family and a life for myself here. 

It wasn’t long after that Mikey got sick and it felt like an instant after that he was gone. Mary was the first person who reached out to me. I remember that. 

Mary has now found her forever home (I think at least) in Colorado which funny enough is where Mikey settled after the military, the place where he died. Mary has a whole full life with grown children and grandchildren. She has a new fiance and even though we don’t talk very often, I follow her every step on social media and through the occasional texts and messages. On the anniversary of my mother’s death, Mary was also the first person to reach out to me because if any single person in this world EVER understood, at all, what I went through—without judgment or embarrassment and only love—it was her. There were many nights we sat under the stars on that back deck, stoned out of our minds, making plans for our great escape. She did it! She made it out of here. And I eventually realized that I never needed to, my home was here waiting for me all along…much grander and magical and wondrous than anything I could have ever thought of. Her legs carried her much further than anyone would have ever given her credit for and for that I am proud of her.  

And Mikey, well, Mikey tried to keep me on a path that wasn’t always so dark and maybe even with a little bit of hope—which couldn’t have been an easy task for him. He was one of the first people I called to tell him about my engagement and pregnancies. We walked through graduation together, deployments, divorces, PTSD, weddings…he single-handly was responsible for a few of us girls getting home at night safely—no matter how smashed we were—without a hair out of place, untouched and unharmed. If he hadn’t brought me to school every morning our senior year—even though we were always late—I’m not sure we would have even gone, even though we mostly had to talk each other into going. Just like in middle school and in high school,  after he left for the service, I would still find myself going to visit his mother and his sisters, having dinner at the kitchen table. Not once did they ask questions nor did they turn me away. They included me just as Mikey had with no hesitation. 

A person doesn’t forget kindness like that. 

Every year for Mikey’s birthday I get a cake and candles. I light the candles, wish him a happy birthday and wait for them to die out on their own. I share the cake with my family and even though my children were much too young when he passed to remember him, they know we have cake for Mikey, in the heat of July, after the candles’ flames turn to smoke and they think of him…even if they can’t recall what his face looked like. 

So today, on Mikey’s birthday, I am filled with thoughts of youth and thoughts of age. I think of life and I think of death. I think of old dreams and reckless nights. I think about beginnings and ends and I think about how where there is love there really are no endings.

Happy Birthday Mikey and Mary. I love you both. 

“And scars are souvenirs you never lose

The past is never far

Did you lose yourself somewhere out there

Did you get to be a star?

And don’t it make you sad to know that life

Is more than who we are?

We grew up way too fast

And now there’s nothing to believe

And reruns all become our history

A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio

And I won’t tell no one your name”