A fond farewell

Last Thursday I received word that a lady that I dated for a while a few years ago overdosed on either cocaine or heroin, or a combination of the two, during a party the previous Monday. While the idiots who she was partying with did take her to the hospital they left her on the sidewalk rather than take the effort to take her inside. Apparently she had been dead for several minutes by the time a nurse, who was leaving the hospital after having just gone off-duty, found her.

REWIND

I first met her and her kids through her mother on July 6, 1998. They were visiting from BC for a few weeks, so her mother figured she should introduce us.

Considering what I knew about her at that time, I knew that I should have ran like hell.

But I didn't.

We spent a lot of time together while she was here and I got along great with the kids, so things were looking pretty good. And she was interesting. But she had a problem, she couldn't drop the party-girl persona for very long. Then she went back to her life in BC's Lower Mainland. She came back in 1999 and we pretty much picked up where we left off. This time she had the intention of making the move permanent when she made the decision to make a permanent break from her long-time boyfriend. And she did, at least for a few weeks. She was making a life for herself. With a regular job and the whole nine yards. Then he came out to see the kids, at her invitation, and he brought the party-lifestyle with him. He didn't leave and she reverted back to the person that she was. So my reaction was, 'see ya!' I went to Vancouver for a year to attend film school and didn't think about her directly again. When I came back I stayed away. From everything I heard she was not nearly the same person she was when I left, and the person she became, and arguably always was, was a person that I didn't want to know.

She left him one more time after that and we got back together briefly. But I knew, from experience, that it wouldn't last. And I was right. It didn't. Eventually they moved back to BC and I was somewhat relieved. It was a cycle that would not repeat itself again.

Christ, am I glad I had no idea what would eventually happen...

THE PRESENT

The doctors revived her, and they didn't exactly do her a favour in doing so. She is paralyzed from the waist down and non-responsive to outside stimulation. They suspect massive brain damage. To top it all off she has pneumonia and it's killing her. The likelihood of her surviving the next week is slim.

I am unsure to this day whether I meant anything to her at all back then or if she was just using me as a diversion, but I suspect the latter. But either way, she mattered to me back then and that's all that's important at right this moment.

For Alyssa:
While I was there for you in the past, I'm so sorry that I couldn't be there for you this time. If there was anything I could do for you, I would, but this is one fight that you have to face yourself.

Scott