Rest in Peace......

I have just come home from the funeral home, attending the visitation of a friend from high school. Another woman who died way too young. She would have been 50 tomorrow, and I swear she was just vain enough to die on purpose before that milestone birthday. I mean absolutely no disrespect by that either.

Kim struggled with anorexia for years. I wasn't even aware until tonight that it stretched back into our high school days. I thought those problems only started after high school. She had an ugly break-up with a boyfriend (and he was no prize, let me tell you), and she was never the same after that. She married, adopted a son from Costa Rica (she was unable to have children of her own), divorced, remarried. We lost touch over the years, although I do recall running into her one day several years ago.

The pictures showing on the t.v. set at the funeral home were haunting. Kim's smile was too big, too plastic, as if she were trying too hard to appear happy. I remember her being that way from school, but apparently it continued into adulthood. It was like there was no one there behind those beautiful blue eyes. Thin. She was so thin.

I'm not even sure how she died. Amanda said she had heard Kim had a stroke a while back, which may be related to the anorexia or may be a separate issue altogether.

I was dismayed to see no one else from school there. Amanda was trying to make it from Atlanta, but she got stuck in traffic on I-85 and wouldn't have made it before visitation was over, so she turned around. At first I thought I was in line for the wrong person, because I didn't see a single person I recognized. I'm not sure Kim's mother realized who I was, even though I told her my name and told her Amanda was on her way. (Amanda and Kim were much closer than Kim and I.)

No one cried. Not a single tear was shed in that funeral home. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. But it felt weird.

I'm glad her demons can't get to her anymore.

Rest in peace, Kim.