A Birth Day and a Shocking Death

I have to admit that this week put a crunch on my plans. Today, I wanted to drop a Happy Birthday to my brother Ryan and my niece Melody (her birthday is tomorrow) but the girl who lived next door to me growing up, one that I've kept in contact with over social media and only a few years older than me...

She died in her sleep.

My condolences to her mother Mary, brother Bobby, husband Korey, their little boy Kendrick (only a few years old) and teenage daughters. Grief is not something I've ever mastered because there's naught to be said or done to salve it. Not that I expect them to read this, but I wanted it to be out there. Just last week, she was having fun with friends, looking healthy in pictures. I know her sciatic nerve was giving her hell, but otherwise I have no clue what the human body is thinking when it just shuts down like that. I know it happens and it's scary and shocking, but we still catch ourselves numb but twitching with one word questions. I don't often cry right when hearing news like this, but this hit hard and fast. She will most definitely be missed and we break to become something completely new again. You don't really heal after loss. You just reassemble on little more than instinct and disbelief and hope. Even nearly 18 months after losing my mom, I still have those dumb moments where I'm thinking I need to call her. Those moments where you laugh at something they would have found funny, those can hang like melancholy instead when you mentally reach for them.

I think I'll leave it at this for today. Tomorrow, I'll aim for something more upbeat or informative. Writing has always been healing so it certainly doesn't stop here. However, I do want to think some more. Even though this marks a week since I got the news, I didn't want to reduce my reaction to an impulse. I might not have been super close to her and her life, but certainly it's more personal than just another celebrity death or something I'm distant from. It's always painful to lose a truly good person. There's such a shortage that its absence is certainly felt.

Kristen Thurman (neé LaManna), you'll be missed.