Death Comes Unexpectedly

When I was little, I spilled my milk at dinner a lot....like once a week. At least. And almost every time it happened I would start to cry. I was so embarrassed! How could I let this happen AGAIN? Everyone would throw their napkin on the massive spill and I would sit there and cry (a tactic to avoid cleaning up perhaps?) But then I would get a full new glass of milk and we would go back to eating and I would dry my tears and everything became right in the world again. So when I was first introduced to Pollyanna the movie, I was an instant fan. Not for her blue eyes and wild bangs, no no. Simply because she spilled her milk at dinner! She cried too! TWINS!!!

Classic Noble-Family movie choice, Oh and don't worry, 

she falls off the roof and breaks some legs, but it turns out fine. Big surprise.

haaayoo

But other than our milk-spilling bond, Pollyanna drove me nuts. She was kind of an idiot and never seemed to grasp basic concepts.Take this scene for example: 

I can just hear my 8 year-old-self now:

"I'm sorry POLLY, but that is NOT how cousins interact with one another. DUH"

George is hot though, amiright?

But it was the character of Rev. Paul Ford who really scared the shit out of me. Here I was watching a care-free movie about a dumb blond girl who gets a makeover and the Reverend comes in and makes things all serious! His sermon is funny to me now, but as a kid I had to fast-forward through it because it made me so scared! (I could die any second?! WHAT? This is some bullshit!!!)

 

DEATH COMES UNEXPECTEDLY is a running joke in my house still to this day, but sometimes I think of it in the car, or before take-off on a flight or even before bed and my childhood fears come back. Rev. Paul's words echo in my ears as I rush through a Hail Mary to try an calm my guilty soul. But today I hear his words again and instead of hearing their humor, I think about how true they really are. Last week I found out that my Fairy Godmother, Kitty, has terminal lung cancer and today I will be seeing her for the first time since my graduation open house two years ago. 

 

You didn't hear wrong, she is indeed my "Fairy" Godmother because she stepped into the Godmother role after my "real" godparents dropped off the face of the earth and discontinued contact with me when I was probably 6. Real nice. So Kitty was this fabulous, raspy-voiced, brassy braud who bought me candy and Lisa Frank coloring pages and called me her baby-girl. She gave me my first "diamond" necklace and my first bottle of perfume - it was a sample-sized Este Lauder which I never sprayed it because it reeked, but it looked really cool displayed on my dresser - She had the craziest laugh I had ever heard, she chewed her gum loudly between smiling teeth and pronounced Wallgreens like Wallgrins. Just from giving her a hug, I would reek of cigarettes; but I loved it and I loved her...hello, she was my FAIRY Godmother. I was a bonafide Cinderella. We haven't kept in touch now that I've gotten older, but she was there for me when I was feeling abandonded by my cop-out Godparents and she swooped me up in her white Toyota Camery to take me out, treat me like a grown up and make me feel special.

 

"We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all the these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye."
—  Pablo Neruda, Still Another Day

this is my face. on Finals.

Good Luck Bitties.