Michaela's birthday is next week. She would have been 25. I can't help but think about her and wonder what life would have been like for both of us had things turned out differently, had she not gone out that night… Would we even be speaking still or would we have long ago had a massive, blow out fight over some petty, inconsequential difference of opinion/behavior? Would we still be the girls we were, the friends we were, or would we have outgrown what seemed so important - our friendship?
Everytime I see butterflies, even just silly graphic butterflies I can't help but think simultaneously of Peter and Michy. So soon after he died, she still in some level of shock but carrying me through, and a text message at New Years...
Just when the caterpillar thought all was lost, she turned into a beautiful butterfly…
Now the phrase is everywhere - jewelry, t-shirts, calendars and posters, but it will never be more beautiful and poignant as it was that cold night, on a cell phone bought while with my now deceased brother and later used to antagonize him to no end. I still have that phone and will never "recycle" it or throw it out… it has the last text messages from him on there, and it has Michaela's simple quote sent in my darkest hour.
I cannot get tattoos as I scar something fierce and while many say "oh just try a simple test line" I prefer to remain in the wistful "can't do it" mentality. If I could though, I would only have two - though I'd love a giant, full back one of the Birth of Venus for the sake sensationalism. No, my genuinely wished for, thought about, almost longed for tattoos would number only two and they would both be about the two most important people in my life that have thus far passed on, and not one of them would be about anger, or sadness, or deep, gut-wrenching grief.
Instead, they would be about hope, peace, grace, wisdom, and love.
Peter, as most know, stems from the Greek "petros" meaning rock or stone. Worked out great as he was incredibly hard headed… ha-ha. But the tattoo I would get to represent him and his influence on my life would be "petros" in Greek lettering on the inside of my right wrist. Fairly plain and simple, some dark ink and no flare. Something that I could see and instantly feel some element of him around/with me.
Michaela's, however, would be utterly flamboyant, gaudy some might say, and though not physically huge, "larger than life"… because simply put, Michaela was larger than life in my mind and heart. For her, I would get a beautiful, graceful, almost delicate butterfly on the inside of my left wrist and color it a mix of beautiful blues, light and dark, transparent and opaque, showing the fluidity of the fragile, yet strong wings. Those wings would be outlined in gold, eye popping, sure to need retouching often, gold. And at each corner of the wings the gold would not simply stop, but would curve up around to the top of my wrist, where the individual lines/threads would meet in the center before becoming an intricate and beautiful letter M. She was so beautiful to me in so many ways, so she deserves an incredible memorial, one that everyone would be forced to notice and appreciate, even if they don't like me, or tattoos in general. She was a piece of art in so many ways for me, to me and so must her memory be on me.
I have mixed twinges each time I see that phrase she sent to me, even more so when it is on frivolous things. On one hand, it irks me that something that is so special, so meaningful, so empowering to me can be used in any way that somehow almost cheapens it. Yet, on the other hand, I remember my laughing, blue eyed friend, the way she would say what I was thinking but afraid to speak aloud, or the way she hugged and how she smelled - a scent simply her - or how she held me while I sobbed without making me feel foolish, but also allowed me to laugh soon after without making me feel guilty. We used to say, after my brother died, that she and I were now the two sides of the coin that I split with my sibling - I was the serious, quiet, almost shy one; she the beautiful, brash, alive one. It seems utterly wrong that now that life has been extinguished in this realm - I'm not sure I believe it totally has - and that now I am simply the serious, quiet, almost shy girl, without the spark of Michy. Her tattoo would fix that…
But I cannot have tattoos so what now must I do to embody the effervescent spirit of this amazing woman? I can live, and I can laugh, and some day I will love with everything I have and when I have a moment, I will think of Michaela, I will grin ridiculously, and I will find someone I know and tell them that I appreciate and love them, not for what they do for me or others, or for what they have, but simply for the being and life within that is truly, uniquely, theirs.
And I will go skinny-dipping when I am 83 and toast my own butterfly.
