Kenzie ❤️‍🔥

A group of 6 college kids were ahead of us in line and started chatting with me. Full on just having a fun conversation with someone literally going through the beginning of a very awkward middle school period. I was so shocked they wanted to talk to me. I think my mom mentioned it was my birthday. They were very nice about it. When we got on the ride they told us to go ahead of them so we could sit at the front of the car since it held 8 people.

Now the ride (called Journey to Atlantis - I believe it is sadly no longer there) started with a slow ride of beautiful visuals of dolphins and oceans and computerized images of this imaginary Atlantis before going up the hill to the beginning of the coaster, where it paused for about 30 seconds, and then the ride started. The college kids must have known there would be a pause. Maybe they’d ridden it before I’m not sure.

But as we sat there on that peak, 6 people I’ve never known, and will never know again, sang a very very lonely 11 year old happy birthday. Loudly. And with gusto. They were happy and laughing and joyful. And it made me feel less alone in the world.

I am 29 years old this year, and I still remember them. I still remember that kindness. It is so important. It doesn’t go into a vacuum. It exists beside me in my daily life. And I love the idea that I have been that person to someone else too.

don’t do that. go to the grocery store and order one of those deli party platters. the ones with like, four different kinds each of meats and cheeses, maybe some sides, and veggies, and bread, and condiments. get the vegetarian version if you know they’re vegetarians. whatever. you know better than i how many people are gonna be eating it, but guess maybe, like, four day’s worth of food.

because, here’s the thing. cards and flowers are very nice, and remind you that you’re in people’s thoughts. but you know what you just. don’t even want to think about when someone dies? making dinner. going to the grocery store. ordering takeout. whatever. you don’t want to have to think about food. you just want to eat in between planning a funeral and working through your grief.

without getting too into it, when my grandma died, we were thrown for a loop. and we ate nothing but what was on that goddamned deli platter for days. because it was quick and easy and fresh and tasted good and we didn’t have to think about food. and ten years later, i don’t remember those cards or flowers, but i sure as hell remember the deli platter.

I remember my mom’s best friend at the time landing on our doorstep with BAGS of groceries that fed us for a couple of weeks.

When my mother died nearly a year ago: I know that a cousin ordered a bouquet of flowers and they were lovely.

What I remember is my mom’s friends landing in my doorstep with bags of groceries that kept me going for a while so I didn’t have to think about feeding myself because I was absolutely lost in a sea of grief and being suddenly Alone and just in a daze of “What the fuck just happened?  Why am I alone?  Where are you?  WHY AM I ALONE?  What do I do now?”

When my dad died, my unit’s condolences were a MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE variety sandwich tray from Jason’s Deli and all the things that hygo with giant sandwich platters (chips, fruit tray, cookie tray, potato salad maybe? some other things, this is like the BIG PARTY PACK or something). I mean, even with me, mom, two sisters, four kids, a BIL, and a sister’s boyfriend, that was five days of food at minimum. Mom’s unit, on the other hand, sent both cash–not loose cash, someone took the time to convert it into practical tens and twenties–and one or two extremely generous Visa cards. 

(I”m ninety-nine percent sure this was a collaborative effort between our units.)

Simple food that required no effort whatsoever even in ‘washing dishes’, just pick up and chew; cash so we’d have that on hand if we needed it without having to go to an ATM or the bank or remember where the debit card is; the Visa gift cards because we work for the state, our names and salaries are not only public knowledge but PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSPAPER EVERY YEAR, and funerals and incidentals are expensive, especially when you don’t see them coming and you’re a public servant.

It was the most intensely practical and also utterly personal help we could have possibly gotten: it was exactly what we needed in exactly the form we needed, and so incredibly kind.  It said “we’re sorry for your loss”, but it also said “we grieve with you”.

a murder to solve

espio’s verses delight

Take this while i dont have anything better to show

Might as well post this silly joke on Tumblr too