Rose

I first met Rose through my husband. We had started dating in 2005 and he needed to get her approval on me. He valued her opinion highly. Apparently I did well because we hit if off right away. She told my husband I looked like a model and I didn't annoy the hell out of her. I guess she had a hard time getting along with girls in general.

We really got to know each other when they moved to the trailer. The apartment they were renting had a major problem with roaches. They had pet rats and a pet mouse that would eat them but it was not sanitary. They heard later that the wall had actually fallen in at the back of the apartment. Their place had been below ground.

The trailer was very much a home. Huge kitchen with an island, huge bathtub and separate shower and two decent sized bedrooms. Rose started her jewelry making business from there. She really made some pretty things. I commissioned her later to do a set of jewelry for a dress and corset set I had made.

She was an ST at the Dark Jihad: Buffalo by Night game at UB in Buffalo. Her husband was also an ST in the game. We had known some of the same people from Buffalo. When I mentioned Ally, Maureen, Scott, she had a very strong reaction to all of them. She had dated Maureen and had heard about Ally from her. I had dated Ally and heard about Maureen. Scott had made a very negative splash in her life as he had mine.
We both had that moment of panic when the names came up, probably wondering if we were still in contact and if we were safe around each other.

Rose and I did a lot of planning together. I helped her with one of the sales of her jewelry at the bellydance gathering in Buffalo. She let me sew things for her and fit her. I made a neat pirate set for her husband and her. Black tribal designs with silver skulls. It was really neat.

Rose made the greatest impact with everyone through her spiritual leadership. She was the high priestess and she held everyone together as a group. She was the hostess for all the parties and led all the rituals. Sometimes it meant having people who weren't that into it in circles, but only there for the social part of things. She was the magnetic center.

The trailer burnt down in May 2008, the night before the Beltaine gathering. I still think it was a wiring issue behind the computer. Her husband might still think it had something to do with a candle he left burning. I'm not sure. It was destroyed and they pretty much lost everything. Both of their cats died in the fire and their pet rat. We found the bodies and buried them behind her mother's house.

She and her husband stayed at her mother's house until they could find a place. I didn't really have much contact with her mother. Rose seemed to prefer to have her friends over when she and her husband(stepfather) weren't home. I never got a really good feeling in the house. It always felt like something was being held back behind a wall but nearly bursting through. Like Rose's mother just wanted Rose quiet and under control so she didn't bug her stepfather so he wouldn't be inconvenienced. There didn't seem to be much of any kind of parent and child relationship with her stepfather. More, just a tolerance of each other.

Rose managed to find a job and started doing well again. They found an apartment and got out of that oppressive atmosphere. Then her vision went and she couldn't see much of anything. Outlines and shadows I guess. She wrote on her Livejournal about the doctors having found a tumor and they were going to leave it. Hope that meant it was benign. Her husband mentioned later that around the time of their anniversary in August they had begun talking about funeral arrangements and other related things.

She died in September of 2008. I remember shock because she hadn't seemed that sick the last time I saw her. Tired sure. We had been at RedMoon LARP in Buffalo and she had worn the costume that I had made her. She looked amazing. We chatted a bit but she had scenes to run. She did seem very tired. She died of a heart attack during the night. In my head I always think of it in the trailer but have to remind myself she was in the new apartment.

My emotions were all over the place. Hubbie called me on a Wednesday. I had just started the job in Elmira and my dad had just been diagnosed with Cancer so a lot was going on for me personally. I had also just met the students I was to work with and was starting to realize the bait and switch. At first I thought he was talking about his friend Dave who had been in the hospital almost two years. I about dropped when I realized he was talking about Rose. He hides his emotions really well, but he sounded out of breath on the phone so he was really upset.

That Friday I went out to dinner with coworkers and was going to leave to drive back to Buffalo for the funeral Saturday night. I think it still wasn't real to me. I heard  The Cure on the jukebox "Friday I'm In Love" and I took a quiet moment to say hi to Rose. It felt like it was her close by.

At the funeral I was calm, then a wreck when I saw the body, then about an hour later I went a little too manic. A few of the girls got together and one of us noticed that her fingernails and lips were painted frosted pink. Oh, how she would have hated that. The only soft color I had ever seen her wear, besides the white on her wedding day, was lavender. I had a little giggle moment which may have appeared cold.

I brought some pics to the funeral as well. I had been a bridesmaid at her wedding the previous year and she had been the priestess at mine one month before her wedding. That summer had been busy. Hubbie's bro had gotten married in June, ours was in July and Rose's in August. I had gotten some pics of her before the ceremony with her mom posing to adjust her veil. It's a traditional bridal shot the other photography missed.
I made a packet of the pics for her husband and mother.

I didn't have enough time with Rose. She had been priestess to my handfasting, wedding, and all of our rituals. Her Book of Shadows still lives on with Dave who has left us for Rochester. I hope he doesn't get rid of it without offering it to one of us. I wish I had had some more time with her. We talked a lot but sometimes I felt like there was a bit of a wall there. That she was holding part of herself back. I know from what people have told me that she had some bad mood swings. She had issues with depression, anger, self-harm etc. She had been at the psych center more than once. Maybe she was holding some of that back with me. She didn't want to affect my opinion of her.

She always said that Hubbie and I were so calm. She felt grounded around us and able to relax. I think a lot of the people that came to her drained a lot of her energy from her and vented a lot of their pain and confusion onto her.

She's missed quite a lot in the years she hasn't been here. I can sometimes feel her in ritual, when I see something she might like, like a pair of docmartin's painted with flames. There's a lot I would have liked to have shared with her. That seems to be a recurring theme with me. People die and you're left with the pieces you would have wanted to share with them, the question marks. That instinct to pick up the phone or write a letter and then remembering there's no voice on the other end.