I Will Always Cherish You
Current mood music: Madonna,“Cherish”
There are people who come into your life that leave the most profound impact. It’s like the whole “two ships passing” idiom; it’s almost as if had you not ever met them, would your life look like the one you wake up to every morning? The realization that somehow had the timing not been right, or you got the red light instead of the green, your work meeting went longer than expected, or you were stopped by someone asking for directions–had any part of the specific sequence that mapped out the very meeting of your divine bodies was derailed, interrupted, or accidentally forgotten, it’s sobering to think that you might’ve never encountered that person at all. That figure who changed your life in the most remarkable way.
I had the fortunate luck (I call it as such because it was precisely that) of meeting Mel when I did. I had essentially been forced out of the Bay Area. Homeless, hopeless, and broken, with only enough money in my pocket to cover a month’s worth of rent in Portland. I had no friends, housing or job lined up when I decided to move to Oregon several years ago. It was merely a calling. There was something, an energy field, that was blindly pulling me to the Pacific Northwest for reasons I still cannot explain. My dear friend Amber gave me a phone number to call of an acquaintance she knew that lived in Portland. “See if she knows of anything,” she urged.
I sent a rapid-fire (and rather desperate) text to this Mel that I had never met, telling her I had just moved to Portland on a whim, hadn’t found any luck in my simultaneous job and apartment search, and was wondering if she knew of any housing leads. And oh, “My name is Kelly and I’m close friends with Amber.” Mel responded quickly and gave me an address to meet her at. I drove up, parked my car, and introduced myself to her partner, who immediately welcomed me in. Mel was on her way. After our introduction and me telling her about my long journey from California to Oregon, my background as a professional cook, my other background as a journalist before that. We took a liking to each other and established an immediate connection. By sheer luck, Mel was in the middle of flipping a just-purchased house that she was turning into a vacation rental. She told me she had just been burned by a friend who took advantage of her kindness and didn’t complete the work they promised to do to the house, and that she was behind and could use another set of hands. She proposed that I could temporarily live in the house in exchange for sweat equity to get the house in working order in time for it be listed. I said yes and couldn’t believe my luck. My text to Mel was a shot in the dark, and my very last attempt at trying to make Portland my new home. Had it not worked out, I surely would’ve turned my car around and headed back to California. But the stars had aligned. I met Mel.
Mel was a force to be reckoned with. She had this work ethic and commanding presence that I could only compare to that of a Marvel superhero. She was smart, savvy, sassy, and hilarious. We spent many nights just cackling about stupid stuff over glasses of wine and delicious food. She was my biggest cheerleader when I barely even knew her (and when she hardly knew me), and I had lost almost all of my confidence. She helped me see the strength that I had stored so deep inside myself that I didn’t even know was there. I affectionately called her, “mama” because she treated me like I was one of her own. She had so much love to give and she kept a tight circle of people she trusted most. I am still grateful for being a part of her universe in the few years I knew her. She changed my life. She took me in like the sad stray dog that I was, and built me up to be the better version of myself that she saw in me.
Over the years we both got busier, and meeting up was getting to be more challenging. She’d randomly pop in to whichever restaurant I was working at at the time, and it would always end up that I was either off that day or had just gone home. We were two ships passing that could no longer sync our journeys. She had been on my mind over the past few days. I had been wanting to reach out to her to check in. I should’ve listened to the voice in my head that was telling me to text her. The day I was going to reach out happened to be the day I found out she had passed. It is still a shock as I type this, tears dripping down my tablet screen with words magnified in little puddles of grief. I was too late.
I don’t know how else to put this, but please, do not wait another day putting things off. After you finish reading this, (or just stop reading this entirely) send the text message. Make that phone call. Write the letter. Press SEND on that Email that’s been hiding in your “Drafts” folder all this time. Don’t waste another second not saying the things you wanted to say. Our time here is too precious for that.
Rest In Peace, my beautiful dear friend. I love you so.