“I’ll miss you.”
I assume that’s the most heard phrase you’ve heard in these last couple of days. But the meaning doesn’t become any weaker.
I will miss you, I miss you, I missed you.
I was unaware of your passing until a week after, I honestly thought you were just really busy since you had just graduated so I didn’t think more of it.
Lorena, a friend you made at SCAD, who I had spent my short time there with, had told me of your passing but I didn’t believe her.
“There’s no way,” I said to myself, as I scrolled though the GoFundMe page for your funeral service, “it’s probably just for medical bills.” But there was a funeral service date and a lot of comments of people who loved you sending you and your family lots of love and condolences. I read the police report and was angry and mad and upset, you were pronounced dead at the scene, miles from home while the driver, a friend you made at SCAD, was sent to the hospital with minor injuries. For days after, I wished it was the other way around but I don’t want to blame her completely, she had also lost a close friend and it would be selfish of me to be mad at her too.
You struggled with going to fashion school these past 4 years, working when you didn’t have class, budgeting money for projects, travelling on bus and train 1 hour and a half both ways, spending long nights sewing and drawing to pursue your dream. Your family supported you, as did your friends, and seeing you made your final collection filled me with determination that I felt my inspiration spark again.
It’s cruel that your life got cut short, you had just graduated from struggling to balance everything and you had worked so hard only for it to be taken away from you. I was so angry that I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that you had passed.
I was in denial. I didn’t believe it. Paty, the sunshine to my moonlight was gone. I cried at my desk at work and had to sob in a conference room, shakily responding to Lorena, so upset that I didn’t get to see you one last time. I was going to surprise you for your birthday in September, finally taking you up on the offer to visit. Lorena wrote back instantly, soothing my pain and saying that you would want us to be happy and cheerful and to live on for you.
The girl who stuck by me in fashion school and cheered me on, the girl who supported me in going to SCAD and whose family helped me move, the girl who encouraged me to go back home when I realized I couldn’t stay and that she would support me whenever I came back to fashion or anything else in my life. I adopted some of your mannerisms, through your love of life and my upward battle with my anxiety and depression, I became the positive light for others just like you were my positive light.
I wished we could have had one more karaoke session or shopping spree together, or at least talked to you one more time, just to catch up, praising you for your amazing fashion work and attempting not to feel jealous, for then you to only say “that people have different paths” and that “you would get there eventually”. I would giggle and sigh, knowing that even through my struggles that you would support any path I would go down.
To the one who helped me find my fashion identity, to workout with me, share a medium fries and free coffee together, bounce fashion ideas, spend long nights talking about everything and nothing and made me feel comfortable in my own skin, thank you. I am so grateful that you were in my life even in the short time we were together.
My dearest Paty, for who I will live on for, I hope you are in a better place and that you rest, you deserve it.
-loving you lots,
Mari
dreamscape 