Lisa
Last weekend I got a phone call I wished I’d never received. My first boyfriend and oldest friend (Earl) texted and asked if we could chat for a minute. I assumed it was bad news about HIS health. His words were the worst: “Are you sitting down? Lisa died of a heart attack two weeks ago”. Lisa, my friend, his lovely wife of many years, had a sudden and massive heart attack as they were on their way out to buy her a mountain bike. He performed CPR until the ambulance arrived, they got her heart started again, but the brain damage was done. After several days in a coma, they donated her organs and let her go (and had the “Grey’s Anatomy” music playing in the OR while they harvested her organs, which she would have found hilarious). She’d just turned 50. She loved dogs and boxing and had just got into cycling.
Lisa’s sister Mimi disappeared in 2008 and was later found murdered. So much tragedy.
Here’s what I wrote on Facebook:
Lisa. I just can’t believe you’re gone.
You were so funny, I don’t think you ever really knew how funny you were. And you were so much fun. You had a laugh that made people want to laugh along with you, I remember laughing with you about something and you covered your mouth and kept giggling until you almost couldn’t stay sitting up. You were so smart, I don’t think you ever really knew how smart you were, either.
You were so interesting to talk to, you saw things others didn’t see. You were so good at making people feel included and important and welcome. You worked so hard, and you were so very tenacious, especially when something really mattered to you. You had such strength of character.
And you were so generous in so many ways, and the fact that Earl and Sammie honored your generosity even in the depths of their shock and pain, by donating your organs, as you wanted, speaks to the kind of person you were. Your last gifts to this world.
Most people who know me know that I’m not someone who really believes in the supernatural, but I so completely believe that someone is never truly gone as long as someone remembers them. And you will be remembered by so many people, and with so much love, that you won’t ever be truly gone. But I will miss you.