An Ending

Charyl died yesterday.  She had been in an induced coma for a week or so, due to bacterial pneumonia.

When I first met her, in August of 1981, I thought she was awesome.  She was smart and talented, strong and determined.  She was 90% deaf,  but with the help of hearing aids and a well-developed skill with lip-reading, she didn't miss much.  She was elegant...tall and slender, and she had a way with clothes.

When she started sleeping with my husband, I wasn't surprised.  I figured she would be just one in the long string of women with whom he fooled around.  I even hoped she and I could still be friends after it was all over.  I really liked having her for a friend.  She was witty, and we liked a lot of the same things...besides SSS, I mean.  She was amazingly talented with fibres and textiles.  She sewed like a professional...once she made a ballet tutu for her daughter--a real one, with all the gussets and inset elastic--just because she had never made one.  She was a weaver, and the blankets and shawls she wove were so beautiful.  The things she knit were gorgeous, too.

She turned out to be the last in SSS's string of women.  He and I separated in October of 1985, and she and Frank divorced six months later.  She threw SSS out a few times over the years, but they eventually got married.  I doubt she would have put up with his wandering ways, so I have to assume he settled down.

So, after a few years of friendship, a few years of enmity and a few years of not caring much one way or another, there is now a bit of a void in my heart.  Never mind the fact that she was only five years older than I am.

Dammit, Charyl! 

My sympathy goes out to her daughters and grandchildren, and, yes, even to SSS.