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.