Ghosts

Went to Drake today to ask them to donate some money to the computer science scholarship for Mary.  There were 8 of her friends plus the president of the company.  They came up will all kinds of fund raisers they want to do in Franklin.  It was pretty awesome that they want to keep Mary’s spirit going as much as I do.  And Mary didn’t think very many people knew who she was at Drake!  She touched so many more lives than she ever imagined.  It is incredible.

 

Let me tell you what it feels like walking in Mary’s footsteps around Franklin , NC.  F---- horrible.  I’m trampling on the images of her walking, talking to her friends, working at her desk, laughing and eating with her friends.  She is still very much alive at Drake in all their work days.  Her name is still in all the code she wrote, the manuals she wrote for training, at least once a day she is mentioned somewhere.  At least that’s what they tell me.  I believe them.  I have to.

 

I walked along the streets and paths that she walked every day.  Talked to the same people she did.  Probably ate at the same restaurant.  This is why people don’t go “back” to places where their loved ones were.  I realize that I’m still living in the house she grew up in.  But she wasn’t living here.  I didn’t see every single day, 8 hours a day.  All of my memories were always about her as a child.  All the pictures, the school papers, and report cards.  I can deal with those.  It’s the pictures of her from last year, the last month, last week memories that are tearing me apart.  I look at them and it’s as if she’s just around the corner.

 

They have rearranged the desks in the office so her “desk” is gone.  No one has “taken her place”.  Her plaque is beautiful.  She will be remembered long after I’m gone.  My thoughts are bouncing like a beach ball lest they stop and I decompose.

 

I’ve got so many things to do. I’ve got to get organized.  I need my Mary to help me.  Where are you, girl?  Speak to me.