From the Doorway to the Depths

 In Loving Memory of my dear Ashley Marie

Marshmallows. She loved marshmallows. I see her standing there in that doorway with the bag. I hear her voice behind me. "You know you want some, you KNOW you do." No, actually, I don't. I really dislike marshmallows, but she loves them, and it's a constant joke. Ashley. At the beginning of the summer, we were strangers, and at the end, we were sisters...then she left...to marry her sweetheart, a young man I loved as a brother.
For a summer, an entire summer, we did the same things...every morning I'd hear her humming, I'd "Ashley Marie" when she squeezed the toothpaste from the middle, and she'd "Courtney Marie" when I made a comment about the way I walked, or something like that. Every night before bed she told me she loved me a million red skittles...and sometimes I'd leave her skittles on her desk, because I could. Ashley. I knew how to make her laugh, and I knew how to comfort her tears. The last time I saw her was a visit for both of us...we went back to where we met, but neither expected the other to be there...she just happened to pop in on the same people I had popped in to visit...and I walked with her, and her sweetheart, under the stars, and we talked. It was the last time...and I had no idea.
I still see her standing in that doorway with her marshmallows, or raiding my closet, coming home in my clothes, but the most daunting memory I have  is that of her in front of the mirror in a wedding dress, at a small boutique in Texas. She loved that dress, and it suited her. She made me promise something that day. She told me I was her sister, like the two she had in Michigan, and she couldn't think of anyone but them, her mom, or me, that she'd want with her that day. She made me promise I'd let her be there when I was in front of a mirror in a dress like that. I told her it was a deal.

On May 11th, 2011, I sat stunned in the midst of a deal breaker. She broke the promise...she left. She was gone...in a most heartbreaking turn of events, my summer roommate, my singing buddy, my skittle sister...my Ashley, the marshmallow eater, she was gone.
I had talked to her just weeks before, only weeks, and she broke the deal. She wouldn't see the dress, or me, for a long time...and for a brief moment, all I wanted was a bag of marshmallows.
I remembered everything I could, all at once, I struggled to pry every memory from my reserves, What did she sound like when she laughed? , How exactly did she stand in the doorway? Such a human reaction to death. The fight to remember that which you had RIGHT in front of you so recently.
In those moments of grief, I yearned to hear her scream for me to kill a spider, threaten to yell at a bully on my behalf, and yes, squeeze the toothpaste from the middle. I remember that night, the night I wish I could put aside. My phone lit up like Christmas. Joey. "Joey we don't have to talk about this, you don't have to talk to me right now." "Yes, Court, I do."

Months later,  I stood before a piece of granite bearing her name, and for only the second time since her death, I wept. I remember that day, and I remember my understanding of the situation: I had none.
I pictured her barreling through the door, calling my name, hugging me so tight that she almost knocked me over, and I pictured her in the doorway, with her bag of marshmallows. I took a deep breath. Under Michigan trees, and before that hunk of granite, I lifted my blue eyes and tried to come to terms with the fact that the giver of those hugs now found herself before a throne of utter grace, even as I stood staring at her name, praying for grace myself. In the past two years, I've spent many hours trying to make sense of it all. I've spent hours trying to convince myself that it's impossible to miss someone this much nearly two years later, but sometimes, things happen that flip a switch in us, to cause a reminder, a trigger, of the grief that came the day my phone lit up, or the day I stared at that piece of granite.

It's a lesson that tonight, I learn anew. The impact we leave on earth, with the people who love us, is a forever impact. Two years is not enough time to make sense of it, because people are eternal, and fortunately for the young woman I grieve, her life is eternal. I am convinced that the one thing I can understand about Ashley's death is that it made me more aware of life. I miss her, and that will never change. For my life on earth, I'll do my best to remember her laugh, her voice, her passions, and how she wanted the best for me.  I will remember her standing in that doorway in he pj's, making fun of me about marshmallows while she consumed an entire bag. I'll laugh about it, and I'll remember how she bounded into the room to tell me she loved me...and I'll make sure I say it to everyone I love deeply, every chance I get, while they are here with me, and I can say it, because she isn't here with me now, and I'd give all the red skittles from here to heaven to say it to her one more time.

There is no making sense of grief, or loss, they are mean, cruel, and bitter, and they hope we crumble beneath their weight. Grief and loss, they come like thieves, ready to take all that we have, our joy, and our hope, our love, and our belief that God is still good. They do something else, though, something that to me, was the harder to overcome. Grief and loss whisper to us and tell us that the toothpaste tubes, the marshmallow memories, the spider squeals, the skittles, they try to tell us that's all we have left...they convince us that because we no longer have a chance to make new memories with that person, we must scramble to get our every memory precisely correct, because we have nothing else. That's a lie. Why do I say that? Because, I had her. We had each other, and I don't have to scramble to remember who she was, or how she lived, and I don't have to convince myself that she knew I loved her, because I told her, and we lived it out. If anything, nearly two years later, I remember her better, not because I'm clinging to details, or because I'm desperately trying to reconstruct memories, it's because of the opposite. I've stopped trying so hard. There is no making sense of it. It still hurts, and some days, some moments, like now, it hurts almost as badly as that first day. That day when I wanted to ask God what in the world He wanted from me, how in the world He could be so cruel, and all the while, He saw my grief, and held my heart.

I've stopped trying to hold her so tightly, because I realize she is impossible to lose. I know exactly where she went. This understanding doesn't change my ache. It doesn't make me yearn less to hear her taunting me from the doorway with her marshmallows, it doesn't do that. What it does do, though, is make me glad I paid attention as she stood there in her usual pose, with that bag in her hands, and her mischievous smile. It makes me glad I was there to know what I know, and that I will never stop knowing it. It makes me glad it doesn't take work to remember who you love, or why you love them, and it makes me want to live out love in a more immense way than I did yesterday, or the day before that. On days like this, when my heart struggles to make sense of why, something I'll never know, I no longer try to piece together her memory. I just smile, and I picture her, not any story or memory, but her, in the doorway, telling me she loves me a million red skittles, and I cry, but I realize it's rare, the love we had for each other, and the love we took great care to express.
I miss her, and I love her, so much, but I am comforted in knowing that because I cannot ever understand why she is absent from me just now, I do so much better loving in the present, not for the sake of a memory, but for the sake of a person, one who likes marshmallows, or hates spiders, one who is absolutely worthy of being loved immensely as she is, simply because she is a part of my life.

It's not about fighting to preserve her in my heart. Now, it's more about realizing that when she was here, I did everything I could to love her well, and now that she isn't, I am continually reminded to love everyone who happens to come near the doorway of my heart, and to love them from the doorway to the depths, because of a girl who stood in the doorway of my room, and the depths of my heart, with her bag of marshmallows. Because of her I am more aware of the heart of every person allowed anywhere near the door of my room, or the depths of my heart, because I don't forget those people, ever, because she got so close to my door, so deep in my heart, that I won't forget her, and I don't want to. I pay so much attention now, to every girl who cries on my couch, and every tear on my shoulder, every "I love you" from the doorway, because I know it's never possible to offer too many off those, and I say an extra one to the the person standing in that figurative, or literal, doorway, because I remember that Ashley isn't standing there anymore, but when she was, I paid attention, and she knew it.

Live your love, from the doorway to the depths,
Courtney