Tag: Carrie

A Chapbook of Grief

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A light brown and light red pen lying on a sheet of lined notebook paper.Instead of torturing you with yet another poem this month, I’m going to tell you about a chapbook I’ve been working on with the goal of having the first draft done by the end of the year.

First of all, a poetry chapbook is about 20-40 pages long. The number of poems depends on how long the poems are. I’m a short poem writer. Most of my poems can be contained on one page. So, in my chapbook writing endeavor, I’m looking at about twenty poems just to be safe.

After my friend and roommate Carrie unexpectedly passed away last December, I ended up using poetry to channel a lot of my grief. In the immediate aftermath, scribbling my feelings down let me keep functioning. It was like a release valve. It kept me from exploding into a useless ball of guilt, tears, and snotty Kleenex (but trust me, there was still a lot of all three).

Early in 2025, I decided it would be a good idea to focus this grief and poetry into a chapbook. Purposely write my pain as a way to process and cope. In a way, somewhere in my grief-addled brain, I thought it would be a good way to honor and memorialize Carrie. She always thought she’d be discarded and forgotten, and I didn’t want that to happen. In retrospect, maybe centering an entire chapbook on my own grief wasn’t the best way to do that, but it gave me something to do.

I do believe that it helped quite a bit. I do think I ended up processing more of my grief than I thought I would. However, I also reached a point where I didn’t want to write about it anymore. I was tired of poking at that wound. I didn’t want to pick at that scab anymore. I wanted it to heal. I was afraid to touch it. I could lie and say that I was worried that repeatedly touching it might cause it to get infected, but the truth was that I was tired of the sting and I was afraid it might hurt as badly as it first did if I prodded hard enough. Honestly, it probably would.

So, I stopped thinking about it, stopped writing about it, and kind of ignored it.

I didn’t look at the poems I had written for months. I flinched just thinking about it. And I put off finishing the chapbook so I wouldn’t have to deal with the discomfort of revisiting that intense grief.

So here I am at the end of the year and the first draft of that chapbook is still unfinished. It’s looming on my To Do List and I’m more uncomfortable with the idea of leaving the chapbook unfinished than I am with making myself finish it. Because by not finishing this first draft -even if I never revise it, even if nothing comes of it- feels like I’m letting Carrie down once again.

I’ve got a few weeks until 2026 and I’m going to finish it. I’ve only got a couple more poems left to write. I can do it.

For Carrie, I’ll get it done.

It Was Her Birthday

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This past Sunday would have been Carrie’s 52nd birthday.

Carrie wasn’t the biggest fan of her birthday because it was a reminder that she was getting older, and she didn’t want to be reminded of that. I suppose she’d like her birthday more now since she’ll never get older.

No doubt there are some people who might think that observation was in poor taste, but she wouldn’t. She’d get what I was saying and she’d agree.

If you thought you missed me saying something about Carrie’s birthday on Sunday, let me assure you that you didn’t. Thanks to social media, I found another way that I’m weird.

It turns out that I don’t like publicly acknowledging the birthdays of those close to me who have passed or their association with certain holidays or the anniversaries of their departures from this mortal plane, the dates they stopped getting older. I know a lot of people do this and it’s perfectly fine and acceptable and I do not begrudge them in the least. I’ve read some very sweet and touching posts in this vein. It’s just not something I want to do. I’m not comfortable grieving publicly. I’m not given to sharing the bitter and the sweet of some memories online.

“But what about this post?!”

I need you to not be pedantic for two seconds, okay? You know what this is. This is me defending my apparent insensitivity because I don’t feel comfortable publicly expressing my grief with memorial posts on social media.

I once joked with Carrie that I wrote “happy birthday” on her Facebook even though we lived in the same house because it doesn’t count unless you say it on social media. Sometimes I feel that way when I see people post sweet things about departed loved ones on holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. I feel like people think that I’m not grieving or keeping loved ones in my heart and thoughts if I don’t say it out loud for everyone to like, heart, and care.

This is 100% a perception thing. I certainly don’t think that about other people. But I have a tendency to think the worst of myself, so I believe that everyone else does, too. I’m sure not everyone does. They probably should, but I’m sure they don’t. The most likely scenario is that they don’t think of it at all. It wouldn’t occur to them to judge me like that. I don’t occupy their thoughts the way I occupy mine.

But in case it does cross your mind, in case you do wonder, in case you are inclined to judge, I do mark the birthdays, the holidays, the anniversaries. I just do it quietly, to myself. I dwell on it as long as my heart can take and then I go on with my day.

There is no wrong answer here when it comes to dealing with such complex and complicated feelings. Some people feel better opening up and some people keep it close.

I’ll keep mine (mostly) to myself.

Hey, Man, Let Me Catch You Up

~ Kiki Writes ~ 4 Comments

I’m not one of those people who puts everything on the internet. Hell, I’m not one of those people that puts everything out in my meat space. I have been conditioned to only discuss my existence in the most general of terms because no one really has the attention span for much more. It doesn’t occur to me to say more, even when I probably should say more.

So here’s what I haven’t been saying since October 1st of 2024.

From October 1st until December 31st, between my dad and my roommate Carrie, there were-

  • 10 ER visits
  • 5 hospitalizations
  • 3 911 calls
  • 2 surgeries
  • 1 death

During this time period my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer (good prognosis with treatment), congestive heart failure, and COPD; I lost count of all of the doctor’s appointments; a long time bestie was also diagnosed with breast cancer, had a double mastectomy, and had new boobs planted (good prognosis there, too); and my dad’s first chemo treatment happened just days after Carrie died. I also had my own visit to the doctor for a med check and was given a second blood pressure medicine because the only other alternative was to lower my stress, and baby, that ain’t happening. There’s probably a bunch of other stuff that happened during that time, but I can’t immediately recall it.

Since this time period, there’s been another hospitalization, a change in my dad’s chemo schedule from every three weeks to weekly, and I don’t know how many medication changes.

In the past month, I’ve played catch up with a couple of people I haven’t talked to for a while. They asked me what’s been going on in my life, and I honestly didn’t know how to answer that question. How do you answer that question when a great bit of your life for the past 8 or 9 months has been this? It’s not the cheery catch up people expect, that’s for sure. When I have talked about it, the people on the receiving end have been kind and empathetic and supportive. I’ve received many offers of help if I need it, which I appreciate, even though I’ll never let myself accept it. But I haven’t talked about it much because I struggle with exactly what to say.

I also kinda don’t want to talk about it. Standing hips deep in the swamp, I’d rather not discuss it, I guess. While I’m getting better about talking about what’s going on with my dad, I’m still not ready to talk about Carrie’s death.

People talk about processing things. I honestly have no idea what that means or how to do it. Right now I’m just going from one thing to the next. One appointment to the next. One task to the next. One responsibility to the next. I’m in the now, experiencing things as they happen, and dealing with them as they come. I have no idea what to do beyond that, but I guess I’ll figure it out. At this point, I’m kinda hoping I’m processing as I go and don’t realize it.

I’m still working on how to condense all of this into an easily digestible, quick answer for the next time I have to catch someone up.

Maybe I can just direct them to this post.

Let Me Tell You About Tinkerbell

~ Kiki Writes ~ 5 Comments

Carrie, my good friend for 20+ years and my roommate for 15+ years, unexpectedly passed away on December 1st.

Carrie and I met through the Lord of the Rings fandom back in the long, long ago of LiveJournal. We spent hours chatting on AIM and she flew out for a visit in 2004 (I think). A few years later, Carrie was in need of help. Plagued by depression and anxiety (as well as undiagnosed autism as we later discovered), she was struggling to survive on her own in Buffalo, NY. I offered her a place to stay in the cornfield and help to get her life back on track. She accepted. I drove 12 hours one way in a rented van to help her relocate her life. Her stay in the attic room was only supposed temporary. She never left.

Moving out here was a rough adjustment for Carrie. She went from living alone to living with two other people. She was afraid of my dad at first. Understandable since he was a police officer. He’s used to be intimidating even when he’s not trying to be. And Carrie’s history had left her easier to intimidate than most. She went from barely coming downstairs, especially if I was at work and only my dad was home, when she first got here to coming down for daily chats with my dad while she made tea as part of her routine in the last year.

Therapy was a big part of Carrie’s growth out here in flyover country. She had a few therapists, but her last connected with her the best. She really helped Carrie heal many of her old wounds and better manage her triggers. She was also key in getting Carrie on the medication that helped her function in life better. Their relationship was cut short thanks to state budget cuts that closed the mental health clinic in town, but Carrie still found a way to build on that progress and continue to improve.

Between the therapy and the support, Carrie really came into her own. She went to community college for a while, studying art. She took better care of her health and happiness. She learned to stand up for herself, assert herself, and set boundaries. She reconnected with her family and made several trips back home, including a solo road trip, something she never would have been able to do before. We went to DragonCon in Atlanta; took the train to Milwaukee for a weekend trip; and flew to Seattle for five days of exploring a city in the part of the country that Carrie adored. She always wanted to live in the Pacific Northwest.

We had a lot of long talks that covered everything from hopes and dreams to fears and nightmares to stories that made us cry to stories that made us laugh until we couldn’t catch our breath. She loved talking about her family, particularly sharing memories about her grandparents and the summers she spent with them, aunts, uncles, and cousins at Keuka Lake. One thing her family and mine had in common was a love of games, particularly card games. She always said that she believed in Heaven and in her version, her grandparents were playing cards with other beloveds who had passed.

Carrie became a valuable part of our family. My nieces claimed her as another aunt. She took the youngest one to Disney World. She was shocked to find that she had gifts waiting for her at her first Christmas at my great-aunt’s. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that rowdy bunch as we ate a whole lot of food and then played loud cards, but she had fun. It was an early wake-up time for her and that house gave her a headache, but she loved going to Thanksgiving and Christmas there. She mourned my grandpa and great-aunt with the rest of the family just as though she’d known them her whole life, too.

A lover of animals, Carrie devoted time and money to animal causes. As much as she loved her make-up and skincare, she made an effort to switch all of her products to cruelty-free brands, a habit which rubbed off on me. I’m not completely cruelty-free yet, but I’m getting there. Carrie never shamed me for not making the switch, but applauded me whenever I did. She understood the struggle. After all, she had always wanted to go vegetarian, but could never quite achieve it. She did reduce her meat consumption quite a bit, though.

Her love of animals extended to our own, inside and out. I always say that any animal that comes within a block of this house will get spoiled. Our cats, the neighbor’s cats, the neighbors’ dogs, squirrels, possums, raccoons, mice, whatever, Carrie was one of the biggest spoilers. Her big heart made her a soft touch. She was our point person when it came to the vet, taking them for their yearly trips and any other necessary visits. It was a hassle wrangling them into their carriers and driving them to another city, but she was happy to do it. Nothing mattered more than the kitties being well-taken care of. Of course, this translated into her doing nightly squeezies for the Addams Family and spoiling her cat Antoinette (she called her Baby) to the point that she admitted that she created a monster. She wouldn’t have had it any other way, though.

Carrie’s generosity extended to humans, too, especially the ones she lived with. If we needed anything, she’d do what she could to help. She didn’t mind picking up my slack and bailing me out of more than one jam that I’d gotten myself into it. She was unfailing in her support for my writing and once she learned not to push too much (you can tell me twice before my spite kicks in), Carrie was good at nudging me to do better at taking care of myself.

She had an affinity for Tinkerbell, anything with cats, monkeys, apes, or sloths, and the color blue. She loved murder mysteries, Jane Austen, and anything relating to England, particular the Tudor period. We had many common interests and likes, but the royal family wasn’t one of them. We had totally different fashion styles (even if we’d been the same size, we wouldn’t have shared clothes) and rarely read the same kinds of books or watched the same kind of movies. But we never missed an episode of What We Do in the Shadows or Ghosts, and even though I stopped watching General Hospital, she kept me up-to-date on the latest storylines. I’ve listened to more A-ha than I would have thanks to her love of them (“The Sun Always Shines on TV” was her favorite song). She learned more than she ever wanted to know about Hawaii Five-O and The Monkees thanks to me.

Was it all rainbows and unicorn farts? Of course not. We had our spats and disagreements. We buried a yard full of hatchets. We got on each other’s nerves. But family does that.

My biggest regret is that the last couple of months of Carrie’s life was so hard. Despite a recent hand surgery, she was right there to pick up the slack with me as we dealt with my dad’s health problems. Then she fell down the stairs. She had a hard couple of weeks after that, but she was finally beginning to rebound from it.

And then she was gone.

It’s been a difficult adjustment not having her here.

Which is kind of funny when you remember that this was all supposed to be temporary anyway.

You’re playing cards beyond the horizon now, my friend.