I haven't been to the memorial page since one extremely triggering night before I went to Rogers. Tonight I went to add a name. I couldn't do it, as I need more words than a name, and I don't have them yet. But scrolling down the wall was a harrowing experience. Heartbreaking to the already heartbroken. Humbling, the promise of a memory. I never could go look for Tracy's name, though I'd been told it was there. Clicking her candle tonight... it's so hard to believe that it's happened again. These things don't happen again; it's never the same. I keep thinking in terms of Tracy; my brain can only (sort of) work its way around that loss. But now there is another. A real rose candle burning since last night, when I couldn't go to sleep without lighting it. A purple origami crane, a ring in Goddess colors, and a piece of garlic bread for a girl I pray to all the holiest love never misses the flavor and never goes hungry again. No, I can't talk about it much right now. But that's where I am. At that wall with the others, the others who've been lost, the others who've shared that loss. I'm dialing phone numbers I've wanted to dial for ages because now I don't see an alternative. This time, a wave of it, web of it, started with me. I had to find the voice, to make sure this was known, to make sure it didn't go by unmarked. She must be missed; she must be grieved. That much I can promise her. I'm leaning on faith to know that love, her Mamaw, and our Tracy-girl will help her through, make sure she's not alone. I'm leaning on the people I call; together, we're each halfway up... Tomorrow, I'll try again, the numbers I couldn't dial when it started to hurt too much.
I will miss writing you letters I can send. I will miss your replies. I will savor the sound of your voice so long as I still have it, and don't you dare be a stranger - in my dreams and out of them...
There are a thousand things to say, but there are a thousand silences to keep as well, vigils. I have to balance the two to keep myself steady, and when I'm not steady, safe. I had just begun to understand that I had a long road before me (still) - that in some ways I was just beginning, and I needed to settle into that fact and dig into the soil again. Inch by inch, row by row. I told the doctor there is always something to blindside you, so consistently that being blindsided almost doesn't blindside me... I didn't tell him yet. I haven't told my siblings or my dad. This is the first time I have words for anyone who didn't know her.
My name is Mary Brave, and I come from a long line of braves, of courage and strength and white-knuckling power, of emotion and tears, endurance, compassion, tenderness, and spark. In my home, I had two roommates. ...Now... I've lost them both. And I know that in time, we'll work out another relationship, I'll understand I haven't lost her entirely, but right now there's no walking away from the truth of what was lost. The girl who raised hell and high water with a perfect smile and a voice we baited hooks to hear. Our southern belle, Miss Dixie Lee.
There will be nights and nights and years and years of words. So peace now, to all of us, to her. Peace such as you deserved to know here, my dear. My love and peace.
Dixie Lee Wooton, d. March 4, 2004.
There is no death; only a transition of worlds. -Seatlh
~her roommate