Let me tell you what you didn’t know about her. Yes, she was a poet, yes she loved to write everything from inspirational blogs to poetry to fiction-trying to hold on to the dreams she no longer believed were real. But that wasn’t an occasional hobby for her, it was her breathing and her tears.

You think she was a business manager, a cop’s wife, a comedienne, an intimidating woman who took no shit off of anyone.

You are mistaken. She was injured early and often. She brought even more on herself with the decisions she made. She learned not to lie, because Truth was the greatest armor. She learned over time that she hated business and set hours and upholding things she didn’t agree with. She learned to think for herself even when it wasn’t a popular decision. It took her an entire lifetime, every damn minute of it, to shed all the labels, expectations, and ‘rules’ that silenced her voice.

She learned to let her heart-break. Every. Damn. Day. Because each time showed her something new and precious. A part of her she’d never seen before. She learned to quit blaming, and let go of bitterness, and that people’s behavior stems from their damages and sorrows. So she learned compassion on top of that. She loved whole-heartedly and paid a heavy price for it~but it was worth it to her. She never talked of ‘re-living’ anything. Now and forward was all she wanted to know.

She never really knew if she was loved greatly, but the love she gave was fierce and irrevocable.

She told me, with eyes on fire, that she intended to take the lessons she’d learned with her when she went, and that her last week of life had been her most epic because she learned to absorb the fear and live anyway.

She died happy because she’d finally become real, and real is eternal.

Now, and forward.