Grief is like this sick and twisted living thing. Emerging from the watery depths when we least expect it or are prepared for it. Each person battles this monster differently and looks to others as if their path through grief is the only way forward. But while we might face monsters of different shapes, sizes, or origins it cannot be mistaken that grief for those left behind is truly a fight for a new version of life. I got some of the worst news I’ve ever received when one of my best friends Moms called me. She was gone. 

I heard the words but I couldn’t feel them. To be honest even today there are days where I still can’t feel it because it doesn’t seem possible. It just seemed ridiculous. Like it was a terrible sick joke that everyone else was in on. As I called my parents and texted a few close friends it started sinking in that death had claimed life. But it couldn’t possibly be her. It couldn’t. Before COVID ruined everything we were supposed to be at a wedding that very weekend. She had found this bright red dress and we argued about whether or not she really needed to buy another pair of shoes for that dress. This wasn’t happening- I had just heard from her on Thanksgiving and that was four days ago. Someone had to have made a mistake. 

But as calls came in and posts went up it was like a veil of numbness settled over my body. Completely blocking out the possibility that this could be true. I just hadn’t heard from her because we live in different places. Because we weren’t the type of friends who held a grudge if we missed one of our weekly calls. While we tried to see each other every month or so sometimes life just would get in the way sometimes. I just hadn’t heard from her. That’s all that it was. She was just busy and when work settled down or whatever was keeping her occupied died down I’d get some random Tik Tok video, Snapchat, or one of our long Facetimes.

At times the carefully crafted wall that I had erected around my mind to keep out this ridiculousness would crack when someone would use the past tense around me. Too often my hands went to grab my phone hoping to text her or give her a call. Always needing her perspective while walking a careful and close balance from compassionate and loving to giving me a hard kick in the ass. But as the phone dialed I realized that it wasn’t going to stop ringing. 

These were the moments when it felt like my feet came out from under me and I couldn’t breathe. There was no sense in this. There was no way for any of us to prepare for this or to get to say goodbye. All I wanted was for us to have taken that last trip to Europe. To travel from Croatia to Budapest and see what sort of trouble we could find ourselves in. To take that one last road trip where we would fight over music playlists and eventually as delirium hit finding a Disney’s Best Hits and turning her car into our own personal karaoke machine. Her driving was never going to terrify me again as she once again hollered, “I grew up in the Bronx we are FINE.” 

There wouldn’t be any more random trips to find Jeni’s Ice Cream or Shake Shack. To explore different cafes in search of the best pastries. Kicking Murphy off the couch as we rented the worst-rated movies just to make fun of the acting. We’d never have the same continuing argument as she told me that no one should ever own as many pairs of leggings as I do and I would counter that no one needed that many pairs of shoes. Arguing about how her favorite color can NOT be black because black is the absence of color. We needed each other because we were so different in a lot of ways that we each had something to share with the other.

It makes no logical sense other than divine intervention or what she would call serendipity that our friendship would ever come into existence. She was my orientation leader during the summer before I started college. She was going into her junior year and carted our group around from seminar to seminar showing us the campus and playing in the pointless icebreakers with us. When school started I never really thought too much about orientation as I was mesmerized by moving into the co-ed (to my parents’ chagrin) dorm (oh I’m sorry CNU- residence hall) and having that first true slice of independence. 

But as fate would have it she was good friends with my RA, Chris, and frequented our hall often as she hung out with Chris and worked at the front desk of the residence hall. So over the first month or two, we would see each other in passing and wave or smile, until she invited a few girls from our hall over to her apartment to watch Pretty Little Liars. It became a weekly obsession casting bets on who could be A and who would end up with who next. Or complaining about professors and the school workload. After a while there were about three of us that would meet in the hall week after week and make our way across the street to her on-campus apartment. 

I struggled feeling like I fit in in college. Being so far away from home and not knowing anyone I didn’t know whether or not this was really where I was supposed to be. The classes were interesting, the people on my hallway were nice, and I had found my favorite spot in the library where I could work or curl up with a cup of coffee and read. But still, something felt like it was missing. When I came back after winter break I really debated on whether or not I should have come back or stayed at home. Sorority recruitment was coming up and a few girls from my hallway were rushing. My RA convinced me to give it a try- what did I have to lose? Well I assumed besides my self esteem and dignity I guess nothing. So I turned in that little form and made my way over to the campus ballroom where all the girls rushing would be put in different groups to meet with the women of the different houses. 

To describe what recruitment was like to anyone who hasn’t gone through it you sound completely crazy. About 20-30 girls walk into a room filled with girls chanting songs with perfect hair and makeup and all in matching outfits. It felt like you stepped into a nightmare as that first girl comes to talk to you and you’re faced with having to make small talk with this senior that’s standing in front of you. But after meeting a few girls in that room you would move on to the next and the next until you experienced all the hairspray and chants of all the houses. Each day was about the same as you whittled down the houses you choose to go back to and they choose to invite back. I saw a few familiar faces but didn’t really know anyone until the third day when I felt someone tap my shoulder and I turned and found Deirdre smiling back at me. 

I knew she was in a sorority. I had seen the pink and the lions and the quatrefoils all over her apartment but I didn’t realize that the Phi Mu I was currently spinning around in trying to remember names and faces was the same Phi Mu that was on Deirdre’s sticker on her laptop. That third day, sisterhood day, we just watched the room and didn’t say much. Not an awkward silence but a comfortable one that comes with time spent and nuances learned. I felt like I finally knew what I had been missing that first semester, a home. The next thing I knew it was bid day and we all were lined up to walk up to a professor who held a sealed envelope with our name on it, inside holding the name of the sorority we had the ability to pledge. I held my breath as I opened mine and saw those precious words- Phi Mu. The professor asked me if I accepted and I just nodded in stunned disbelief. Then the most terrifying thing happened. They lined us up in small groups and took us to the front of the ballroom looking out at big crowds of the sororities all claiming a different spot in the room. They would count to three and then you were to RUN “home” as they called it. A few girls tripped (luckily not me) as they ran into the arms of their sisters. 

As I ran to the loud pink mob at the back of the room girls hugging me and passing me around I was looking over their faces looking for her. There Deirdre was- a complete basket case crying hysterically as she came over to give me a hug. And that was that. There was little doubt in my mind that she would be my Big, the guide and mentor through the pledging process and beyond. Even before the title was officially bestowed that was just how it always was. She was the one who took me to the Urgent Care when I broke my foot and then to all my follow up orthopedic appointments shoving me and my crutches in her little yellow VW Bug. She was the one that would let me use her printing funds when I undoubtable ran out before finals week. Who listened to me as I cried with how hard classes were or about roommate drama. Who brought me ice cream when I was so sick with strep I couldn’t eat anything besides ice cream and popsicles. She was the reason I survived college.

She also just knew that life was about more than coloring inside the lines. It was about adventures and experiences that you couldn’t let pass you by. I learned this as she bought me my first (and last) four loko. Who sat with me as I drunkenly cried my eyes out on my 19th birthday because she was going to be graduating that year and leaving me all alone. Who would go with me to the school ice hockey games that ran so late and then in the morning cart ourselves off to Food Craft for the best pancakes around, or if we couldn’t make it that far to Warwick which was closer but was also less superior. Whose car broke down three streets away from the Barn her senior year on Halloween and she walked the rest of the way in her Wonder Woman costume not letting car troubles get in the way of her favorite holiday. And then too soon it came- 2012 Graduation. I watched as she walked across the stage and hugged little old Rosemary Trible at the end of the platform and thought that college was going to be unbearable without her. But she was about to embark on her newest and greatest journey, moving to Richmond. 

I would come up and we’d all watch Dawson’s Creek or argue over who should have ended up with Lucas on One Tree Hill (the answer will always be Brooke). I’d meet some of their friends and it would be an amazing pause in what was still back in Newport News. But Deirdre also became an advisor for our Phi Mu chapter which meant that without fail I would see her every Sunday before we’d all squish into one of the lecture halls. She’d come down early and we’d grab Plaza or Mexican and it would just be so normal. That was the year we added two more beautiful penguins into our Phi Mu family as I took my littles Hayley and Paige. Deirdre loved them just as much as I did. She stalked them from afar and helped me pick out gifts for Big/Little week. I wasn’t scared to be a Big sister because she had already shown me what one should look like.

Our friendship changed as we got older, not less, but different. With lives in different directions- work and finishing my degree- that’s when it started that we didn’t talk everyday. But no less life went on especially as I came home one day my junior year and found her and Paige drunk on my kitchen floor at two in the afternoon yelling at me to take them to McDonalds.This season in our friendship taught me that friendships adapt and adjust to life and when you could be confident in your friendship you were able to allow those around you to make adjustments without guilt. 

She was always the one I texted as I walked through Target asking if I really needed one more thing. Or through a bookstore asking if I needed just one more book even if I had four waiting on my shelf at home. We’d make plans of all the places we wanted to go and experience believing that we had all the time in the world. We planned on living it up like her Nan who was fearless as she took pictures with a baby alligator on a Collins family vacation I went on in Florida. She was going to teach me how to make red sauce as she mocked me every time I said marinara saying that I offended her Italian heritage. She was determined to one day teach me how to wear lipstick properly. She was the one who sent me a letter before my first ever trip to Haiti and told me that she believed I was going to change the world. 

We had so many plans and so many things we wanted to live for as we dreamed up Pinterest worthy weddings and house floor plans. She would remind me if I ever got married that she looked better in this color or this style dress telling me that she’d remind me when the time came. We joked that she would one day be my kids “Auntie Big” and she’d spoil them rotten and teach them how to annoy the piss out of me. We had so many plans and yet we ended up having so little time. There are times my chest hurts so badly at the thought that I never got to say goodbye. That there could have been time for one more trip or one more laugh. Times when I just wanted to pick up the phone and yell at her for leaving me behind. But through the tears, and the yelling, and the overwhelming numbness I can tell you the world lost an amazing soul and is a little dimmer with it’s light missing. 

So my Big, Biggie, Biggles, DeeDee, Deeds, Big D, and Deirdre I know that where you are now that you are still shining. Still loving fiercely and taking no one’s crap. But know that no one that knew you is ever going to fill the void that losing you has left us with. I could fill endless pages about who you were and what you brought and taught me but the most important things are: That I am worth choosing (whether from a sorority or any aspect of life), that my voice matters, that memories are the best investments you can make, that champagne is appropriate with every occasion, and that we could all be a little better if we just loved and listened more. Thank you for making me a better woman. I’ll try and make you proud. No matter what and no matter when you will always be a BIG part of my life. (And yes I can feel your eyes rolling as you tell me that no one should use as many puns as I do in my daily life)

“I’ve heard it said. That people come into our lives for a reason. Bringing something we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return. Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true, but I know I’m who I am today because I knew you.”

LIOB