I found out Sia lay dying in a Canadian hospital via Faceypages.
Her mom, in B’more, was posting on her wall to hang in there till she got there.
Her mom didn’t really know we were friends and never responded to my calls to offer condolences and find out what happened.
I did find out what happened from a mutual friend who was in Vancouver and stayed at her bedside till the mom got there.
The mom and sister weren’t close to her, as far as I knew. Maybe something had changed. But it really seemed like they guarded Sia in death since they couldn’t contain her spirit in life.
In any event, this year I’ve had some flashbacks to that time.
I had a bunch of friends at my last job. They were there during the lowest point of my life last June. And boy were there a bunch of those. But without a reason to talk all the time, we mostly didn’t.
Not even in February, when one got married. Which I know because I read about it in the goddamn Palm Beach Post.
Not even last Friday, when another said on LinkedIn that her mom was in the hospital.
I texted the second one today to say I know I’m out of the loop/group and I have to find out about your big life events on social media now but I love you a whole bunch and I’m thinking about you.
My phone rang instantly.
Her mom died Monday.
Shit.
I didn’t say much other than I felt like I knew her mom. How much she looks like her mom. How awesome that she has a good guy to support her. How I’ll think of her mom loving her daughters and her cats … and their kids and their cats … and her perfectly manicured garden that she landscaped with her own two hands.
I said this is how I found out about Sia. Is this what we have to look forward to, a lifetime of getting heartbreaking news in between memes about overqualified SCOTUS nominees being cross-examined by hypocritical hicks and limp-wristed losers?
I remember the month my life went to absolute shit. How H. called Sue and they cried for me.
Sue’s obituary says she was everyone’s second mom, and her girls were lucky to have her as their mom.
As I read that during my next conference call, I wept for them the way they wept for me.
I don’t know how any of them are stringing sentences together right now.
And knowing that Sue died the same way Sia did, I don’t know how I’m doing the same.