Valentine's Day - A Bittersweet Memory

February 14, 2019 was an incredible day.

I had just turned 50 years old on the fifth. I was in Madrid, Spain on the trip of a lifetime. I'd spent the three days before zooming on the bullet train to Barcelona where I saw La Sagrada Familia and visited the Ciutat Vella and the Barri Gotic, viewed the aqueducts of Segovia and the Alcazar, toured the University of Salamanca and the walls of Avila. I spent the morning of the 14th touring the Prado and seeing the works of El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Picasso. That night we were going to a Valentine's Day dinner at Al Mounia, a Moroccan restaurant. I'd had to remember my Spanish and was finally starting to get comfortable with it again.

However, before we got out of the taxi back at our apartment, a tiny Air BNB that overlooked the entrance to the Plaza del Sol, Don asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I needed to go straight back to the room. Once we got there, I went into the bedroom and I broke down into tears, because my best friend had died.

I had awakened at about 3 a.m. that morning, Madrid time, and just happened to check my phone, which I usually have turned off at night. I noticed a message from Lisa Henry who was also good friends with Christine and she said Christine's brother Chadd was trying to get in touch with me because Christine had become very ill and was in the hospital at Little Rock. Things weren't looking too good.

This was a shock to me. She'd posted on her Facebook page that she was battling the flu and wasn't happy about it at all. She'd also just lost her cat Rusty, who'd been with her for several years. I didn't think things had taken such a turn for the worse. If I remember right, Chadd sent me message soon after saying she was on life support and I asked him to please keep me posted. He knew I was on vacation, but he wanted me to know what was going on. He didn't want the situation to ruin our trip.

About an hour later, he messaged and said she was gone. I went numb and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to wake Don, so I just drifted in and out of sleep, thinking maybe I'd dreamed it all.

I told Don as soon as we got up and I managed to hold myself together during our lightning fast tour through the Prado. Luis, our guide from the Tapas tour we took our first night in Madrid was gracious enough to lead us through and was one of the coolest people we met there. There was a moment as I was standing in front of an El Greco (I don't remember which painting) when I almost didn't think I was going to get through it. But when that was over, and Don and I were back in the room by ourselves, that's when I lost it.

Christine was my best friend through most of high school. She moved to Mena when I was a freshman and she was a sophomore. Her family also went to our church at First United Methodist in Mena. Here we are on the trip to Washington D.C. we went on with a student group in June of 1985, sitting in a mock space capsule. I was already practicing my "I'm going to be a rock star someday" look. She just looks tired. Probably of me. We put a picture of Nikki Sixx wearing nothing but a towel on the wall of our hotel room and thought we were being so..."rebellious."

We were pretty much inseparable, listening to hair bands and watching MTV twenty-four seven, until we had a slight falling out when I was a senior and she was a freshman at Henderson. Stupid stuff, really, but things happen, and friends sometimes just take different paths. She was the reason I went to Henderson; I'd been looking at Arkansas Tech up until she'd started there. I saw her briefly right before she graduated with her bachelor's degree - I still had two more years to go.

Anyway, the years went by and social media was invented. We found each other again on Facebook and kept up quite a bit. I even introduced her via the web to another friend of mine, Lynn Milam, in Killeen because they both loved Christian Kane and the show Supernatural. Christine and I had a short visit in person up at Mena when she and her mom were in town visiting with the Rousseaus. And then she moved back to Mena to start a new job there. Yay!! She went with me and my mom to see American Made, the movie about Mena that isn't really about Mena at all, and we hung out up there several times. She came to the big Riddle Family Christmas shindig in 2017 and got to meet all the "Younglings" (my grandchildren) and some of the Groovetones (my bandmates). When she had to look for a new job, I encouraged her to apply at my college where we had several openings at the time. That didn't work out, but she did get her daycare job in Arkadelphia so she was still close by. She came and celebrated Thanksgiving with us in 2018. She brought a Marie Callender's apple pie. (She didn't really like to cook or bake! Lynn was teaching her via the web.) We watched Solo, the beginning of The Last Jedi and she was introduced to all my cats, because we always loved our kitties as much as we loved hard rock music and Star Wars. We both owned Siamese and orange tabbies at various times and were always sharing pictures of Renegade Ted, Cherish, RC, Rusty, Reno, and Felix. She came to my birthday dinner in Mena with my parents at Chicollo's. She gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card. I still haven't used it.

We made plans to do a lot of stuff together. I was making plans to go see bands that I never saw back in the day and she was going to come with me. But now she's gone, and I am heartbroken.

When I was able to pull myself back together that day in Madrid, I used Don's phone to call Chadd to find out what really happened. She'd had the flu, yes, but she had also developed pneumonia and was having trouble breathing. Some other issues arose, and they did all they could do. The family traveled from Alabama to Little Rock, and a pastor from Arkadelphia was there, so she was surrounded by those who loved her there in the end. Before all this she'd been anxious to see the pictures from the trip and had enjoyed the ones I'd posted so far. I really wish she could have seen them all.

Don and I went on that night to have a fantastic dinner at Al Mounia and were even entertained by a belly dancer. I found the djembe player rather attractive myself - and I know Christine would have also😄.

We bought a bottle of wine and raised a toast in her honor. I know she would have enjoyed the atmosphere, if not the food. I don't know if Moroccan would have been her style. That night Don posted that the sky in Madrid was a little less blue that day. The next night, our last in Madrid, we stood outside the Royal Palace at dusk and listened to the two brothers who were playing violin and guitar on the parade deck. They played "Time to Say Goodbye," and it was terribly bittersweet. It was time to say goodbye to Madrid, but it was also time to say goodbye to my friend. To feel such elation and sorrow all at once; to experience a dream vacation and such loss simultaneously.

I find it terribly ironic that Christine died on Valentine's Day. She HATED Valentine's Day. The minute the stuff went up after Christmas she'd start complaining. Christine never married and didn't have children, though she loved them greatly. She had once been engaged but that fell through; I'm not really sure why and I didn't ask. (I'd met the guy and didn't particularly like him, but it really wasn't any of my business.) But she still despised the holiday. I always told her anyone or anything could be your "valentine" - her family, her friends, her cats. In typical Christine fashion, she kinda harrumphed me, that kind of "easy for you to say!" thing. It just made me laugh. "But I'm your valentine!" I'd say, and I'd get that eyeroll.

As memorial arrangements were being made, Chadd contacted me about the service. Christine had been cremated, but they were gathering at his home around Florence, Alabama and would be holding the service at the Methodist church in Killen in March. Would I get up and speak? Absolutely.

I think it was the morning of the day we were going to leave for Alabama, because I had dropped off Renegade Ted, the 15-year-old Siamese, at the vet to be boarded. Christine was a huge fan, and she named him that after he used to go on adventures out in the woods at my rent house in DeQueen. I was coming up Texas Boulevard and Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home" came on the radio. She and I were HUGE Crüe fans, much to the chagrin of our parents, and it had me reaching into the glove box for some Starbucks napkins to wipe my face. (She and I were also Starbucks fans.) I had to stop at CVS for...something...and for some odd reason was compelled to buy this $1 plastic expandable bracelet with blue beads and a rhinestone heart charm and it reminded me of her.

Don't really know why - I just bought it. I wear it to the shows I wanted her to see with me. I wore it to see Whitesnake, KISS, Heart and Joan Jett, Y & T, even the Gary Allan concert. (I don't think she understood my acceptance of country music. But having had to learn to play it, well, I developed a new appreciation for it. Traditional country, not that Hick-Hop stuff. And Gary Allan is more crossover - I think she would have enjoyed it. Especially the guitar player wearing the Ratt T-shirt. She was with me there, whether she wanted to be or not!).

It was great to see my other family at that get-together at Chadd's. I saw my other mom, Jean Ann, and Scott, and Chadd, and his beautiful family. We shared stories of Christine - her loyalty, her humor, her stubbornness, her health struggles, her no-nonsense approach to life. It wasn't hard to come up with things to talk about at the service, but it was hard to get up and really say it. I told the story of how we followed Robert Sweet, drummer of Stryper, around Six Flags for about ten minutes but we were too chicken to speak to him. That was the first metal band we were ever allowed to go see.

Though my friend has moved on to another place, I gained friends in the process. Her friends Carla and Mekey were there and introduced themselves. I remember Christine telling me about Carla when Christine first moved to Mena. She always said Carla and I were a lot alike. I saw George and Marge Rousseau there. I met her nephew and nieces who loved their aunt dearly. There were many others there who loved Christine and her family and were just as in shock as the rest of us. I got through the speech, and tried to relay the fun times, the good times, the times that were probably too good that most best friends experience in their late teens, if you know what I mean.

Christine was the first person to ever read the first novel I published. Out of a green Mead three-subject notebook with college-ruled paper. When she finally got a Kindle, she downloaded "Rockin' Heaven Down" the minute it became available. She texted me when she finished it and was the second person to review it on Amazon. When we were hanging out in Mena in the spring of 2018, she told me: "You changed some stuff!" And..."What exactly have you been DOING all these years??!!" I reminded her, "It's totally FICTION!!" We went on and on about Paul Hackman (Helix) and Tommy Lee and all the other rocker men we used to swoon over back in those days, and I told her I was working on the sequel. And she was ready to keep reading, because I'd been posting chapters in another blog I'd started. I would send her new scenes I'd written, and she always had good feedback. She was a big fan. She's even the inspiration for one of the characters. That is why the ebook is free on Kindle this week: to honor her as my first reader back when I started in 1985.

Well, I dropped the ball. I didn't have the first installment ready last year. But the first thing that popped in my head as we drove back to Arkansas after her service was "Finish your books." And "Go to your concerts". And "Learn new things." And "Take care of yourself." And "Do the things you enjoy with the people you love as often as possible, because you just never know." So that's what I'm doing, as much as I can. She would find it crazy that I'm learning to ride a motorcycle, but she wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

For the past year, I've had those moments where I think, "I need to tell Christine this," but I have to catch myself. I may not be able to say it physically, but she probably knows what I want to tell her already. I know she's somewhere talking to some of those rocker dudes that have passed before, petting a multitude of our previous pets, and never having to worry about Valentine's Day ever again. She's also most likely enjoying as much Starbucks coffee she can drink and as many Cinnabon cinnamon rolls she can eat. In fact, I picked one of those up at the Pilot in Arkadelphia today. It's not on my diet, but I'm eating it. 

I also may watch an episode of The Librarians with Christian Kane, or an entire season of Supernatural. I'll read another book in the Lillian Jackson Braun "The Cat Who" series, because she loved those. I started them last year and I'm on number four, "The Cat Who Saw Red", which I found at the Friends of the Library Bookstore the last time I worked there. I've started collecting them, like I did the Sue Grafton Alphabet series.

I'll definitely be petting my cats. I was happy to know that her cat Felix, who was a foster cat she eventually adopted, was able to find a good home. I will do all of these things, because they will always remind me of her. 

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone, so rest well, my friend, until I see you again. In the meantime, have fun hanging out with Paul and Robbin and Michael Jackson and Prince and Elvis and Carrie Fisher. I know you’re hearing an awesome show every weekend!