gone

At 10:57 PM the phone rings, it’s my friend Sherry

“Krissi…. Elaine… she’s… gone”

Yeah? So what, Elaine goes lots of places - she travels for work, for fun, she goes out she goes.

“… no, you don’t understand… she is gone.”

Elaine is gone. She shouldn’t be gone, it doesn’t make sense. It would make more sense if I were gone, right? Elaine is 32, she’s healthy, nothing wrong. Getting married two weeks after us. She’s in our wedding, we have the same wedding colors picked out. She’s Ken’s best friend and “other best man” or my “extra bride’s maid”. I talked to her on the phone Monday, she wanted to plan a birthday dinner for our friend. Ken saw her yesterday, at work - their cubicles are a few rows away from each other. I just saw her yesterday morning at Starbucks and she was fine (as fine as anyone looks at Starbucks around 8 am in the morning…) She asked if we still had plans for this weekend (today!) to come over and play with her new PlayStation.

gone? What do you mean, GONE. This can’t be true, it doesn’t compute. I don’t understand.

I. DON’T. UNDERSTAND.

The calls started coming in - hysterical ones. Everyone. What is going on? Is she sick? Is she OK? What should I do, where should I go? Someone tried to go to the hospital but was turned away - no info unless you’re family. A policeman told someone else she was DOA. The hospital said they couldn’t release info over the phone. Someone called her parents, someone else called her fiancee on travel for work in Poland, no one knew for sure. No one knew.

I called the hospital. I talked to the hospital administrator. She said come to the hospital, go to the ER, ask for the charge nurse, she will talk to you because I’ll tell her it’s OK.

The drive took me an hour because traffic was backed-up. I got to her house, or rather, her neighborhood, and everyone was there. The girl who did CPR for 10 minutes before the paramedics showed. The neighbor who called everyone on Elaine’s cell phone she could find. A friend from Tampa drove stright over. Everyone knew it was all wrong.

It was all wrong.

No one knew for certain if she was alive or not. No one had given any official word. We didn’t know.

Her fiancee called someone else, he asked to have the phone passed to me. I said soothing things. I promised we were all together. I said we all loved her and we are here, waiting for him. I told him come fast, but come safely. We will be here. All of us will be here.

I knew to go to the hospital. I’d called and been given instructions. Two others came with me, ones who’ve known her even longer than the 7 years I have. We went, we inquired -

we were asked to sit in that little room, the ones with the blinds shut.

The nurse came in

“Yes, your friend is here…”

I held onto hope. She’s here, she’s safe, she’s sick but she’s being taken care of

“but, I’m sorry….”

No hope left.

I asked questions, a lot of questions. Did they know she is Catholic? Did they contact her parents out-of-state? What did they do? What happened after she arrived? Was she ever conscious? A heartbeat, maybe? Anything? Do you KNOW HER NAME, I even questioned.

They didn’t know her name. Someone thought they knew it but in the confusion of the situation the paramedics at the scene didn’t get it exactly right. I showed them her purse, her wallet, the driver’s license. The nurse left, came back

“… I’m sorry”

What do I say? Think? Do? Tears couldn’t come. Emotions were stuck. I am not believing this, not ELAINE.

“You can see your friend if you’d like… do you want that?”

Both people with me answered affirmative at the same time. I didn’t answer, they answered for me.

We went in, we saw her.

Gone.

I brushed her hair, held her hand, kissed her forehead. The two others did the same, plus tears. I had no tears. I tried to feel with my mind’s eye if she was there, even a little bit, a spark, something left… anything. We mused at her newly polished nails in “hooker red” as she’d said. I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to stay, I would’ve stayed all night. My friend..

Gone.

Her parents asked that either Ken/I or Sherry take posession of her purse, phone, personal belongings and most importantly her dog. Sherry was half-way across the state and I was the one there. So I got the responsibility. I have a purse, a dog and… nothing else. Because it’s gone.

We don’t know. We don’t know. She collapsed on the floor in her kitchen while preparing dinner with a neighbor’s 9 year old daughter, the drunk neighbor in the other room. 911 was called, someone else did CPR, the drunk neighbor refused to take her two kids away - I can’t get over what those kids had to see. And to see their mother drunk and unable to do shit.

My friend laid on the floor for many minutes before the other neighbor was summoned to do CPR. The paramentics came, shocked her 3 times took her away and she was gone.

She never had a heartbeat.

This is not how I wanted to spend my evening, or tomorrow, or no doubt the next week… or who knows how long?

How am I ever EVER going to tell my son that the only ‘auntie’ he’s known well and spent the most time with since he was 8 months old is GONE?

These are the only things I have - words. Still no tears, nothing. Just numbness and… words.