It sort of has to be becuase there's too much ache in it.
As the time has passed I realize that nothing I've said needs to be anonymous. Steven was a good and kind person, flawed as we all are, but someone worth knowing and someone worth talking about.
I deleted everything but the "Dean" posts and felt finished until I was on the phone with a girlfriend the other day and I was kind of complaining about my sluggishness and my weight (I've put on about 5 pounds and stopped running).
She asked me why I stopped running.
And I didn't really have an answer.
Because I wasn't ever running toward something I was definitely running away. And with Steven's illness and death I was so overwhelmed and so angry at so many different people that if I didn't run I might have screamed and hit and punched someone.
Which, in retrospect, some people might have deserved.
But this week I started running again.
The long runs, the ones over 5 miles where you fairly leap off the ground and your chest burns and your ankles pound and you think you might fall over and die.
But around mile two something washes over you and your ankles are strong and your back is straight but not rigid and your lungs are full and clear.
And you're a runner again.
But you aren't running away from anything because life is pretty good even when people you love aren't here any more.
So here's Steven's smile before his hair fell out and his skin before it yellowed.
And here's the salon that brought us all together and was a source of great pride for Steven.
The obituary is here.
And I miss him and the crazy little group that surrounded him because 44 years was a rip off.
We deserved a little more.
I'll leave this up because deleting it seems wrong and I've changed the names because none of us need to be ashamed of who we are or how we behaved.
We all did the best we could.
xoxo
Jess
