"Anchorage" and my friend Darla...

I had a long drive tonight, and I was listening to the radio when an old song called "Anchorage" came on.  I was transported back to high school, and thoughts of my friend Darla.  She owned the CD containing "Anchorage", Michelle Shocked's "Short, Sharp, Shocked".  I remember the CD had a lot of anti-police rhetoric, which would obviously offend me now...even the picture on the cover had an angry Michelle Shocked being carried by police officers.  I really liked the song "Anchorage" though.  It's a song about two friends who were once very close, but have drifted apart.  As Michelle sings, "I took time out to write to my old friend, I walked across that burning bridge".

My friend Darla is dead now.  I can never walk across that burning bridge.  She shot herself just a few years after high school, leaving behind a daughter and a son.  Her daughter is my niece's age; they graduated together last spring.  I couldn't stop crying when they read her daughter's name.  

Darla was in my humanities class and we both really liked our teacher, Ms. Brandert.  Darla did the best impression of her gruff laugh! :)  I remember a sun-filled afternoon at Lakewood Park, just sitting by the lake.  I remember hanging out at Darla's house with her cat Nelson and her dogs' funny nicknames.  There are sad memories too.  Darla had problems with alcoholism and depression.  She missed our graduation because she was  having trouble.  I wish I had known then what I know now.  Maybe I could have been a better friend, maybe I could have helped her through those rough times better than I did.  

When we were still in high school, Darla and my friend Tanya and I spent a lot of time together.  One night we went to see the movie "Beaches", a movie about a friendship that doesn't end.  I remember that night so vividly, one of the times we were all together before school ended and we drifted apart.  I don't remember events of the night so much as just the love and togetherness.  I remember that the time ahead of us seemed so vast and full of possibility.  I could never have imagined that Darla would be dead just a few years later.  I didn't think I could ever be 40 years old, with a nine-year-old son and a mortgage.  

Darla had her senior pictures taken and let me pick out my favorite, which I still have.  I called it, ironically, her angel picture since she was wearing white and looked so beautiful.  On the back she wrote to always remember Brandert and "Beaches".  I do remember, Darla, and I always will.

Shelley