Dear Charmayne

“All of my identity was wrapped up in being a wife and mom. When that all went to hell, I didn’t know who I was anymore. I wish I would’ve put the boys in school and signed them up for sports. I wish I would’ve spent more time running them around instead of ‘keeping them safe’ in the house. I wish I would’ve spent more time on the things that mattered, like reading my Bible and praying. Those are the things that matter. Those are the only things that matter. Instead here I am in this mess.”

In the summer of 2010, we were members of a home fellowship, which is a church that met in a house instead of a church building. It was so idealistic, exactly what we had been looking for. I struggled to find my place in the circle of women that had been meeting for seven years before we joined. I went to everything, put my name on everything, brought good food to meals, and dressed up for church. I desperately wanted to be seen as one of them.

The ladies met for Bible study one morning a week, and that was where I started to find myself in the circle. This is the way our home church worked. There was a collective group that was too big to meet in one house, so it was broken up into smaller groups with one elder leading each fellowship. Our Bible study was comprised of the wives in our group of eight families, except for one woman who came to our Bible studies even though she was part of another fellowship. I was too new to know the backstory, but I loved her immediately. Charmayne wasn’t afraid to ask questions that might have seemed taboo or even inappropriate at times. Although she came across as soft-spoken, she was fearless. She genuinely wanted to know the truth, how it should work in her life and searched tirelessly for it. I was compelled to think more deeply because of her. She challenged things that the rest of us either just swallowed or secretly disregarded.

There were times when the collective group would get together for picnics and meetings so there would be some connectivity between the individual fellowships. Ironically, most of the groups sort of sectioned off at these meetings, so I didn’t have much of an opportunity to get to know Charmayne, but my daughter and her daughter were fire-and-ice on the brink of adolescence. This complicated what could potentially be a really cool friendship for us because, naturally, we always sided with our own daughters which ultimately put us at odds with each other.

The families in our church all homeschooled. It was one of the commonalities that drew us. Once a week, most of us attended a co-op at a separate church, they actually met in a building which was more conducive to a busy homeschool co-op. I was always watching for chances to get to know Charmayne; she was pretty removed from my life once she quit going to our Bible study. When we would all meet to plan for the schoolyear, I’d try to get into classes with her. The first year she signed up to teach 1st graders how to play the recorder. I couldn’t handle that, I know myself that well, at least. The next year or two, she didn’t come back. At that point, she fell off my radar completely. But the third year, she showed up to the planning meeting and submitted an idea to teach cake decorating to the older girls. As soon as the words were on the idea board, I shot my hand up and asked if I could be her assistant. Here was my chance.

I can’t tell you how much I looked forward to this class. It was the highlight of my week. Let’s be honest: cake, teenaged girls, my friend that I loved talking to, and frosting. It was everything good in life! We really did connect then. She had lost a lot of weight and seemed elusive about how she lost it. I suspected that something was off with her, but I wasn’t about to broach anything like that in our budding new friendship. I just waited and listened. One week, I got an email that she had left for Oklahoma where her family lived, and she was unsure of when she’d be back. I chalked it up to a family emergency. Little did I know… it was exactly that.

The year passed, summer came, and we started getting together outside of co-op and church. In those times the story of her sadness began to unfold. That’s when she told me she was moving to Louisiana. Broke my dang heart. Why had I waited for so long to bridge my life to hers? We had conversations that I had never had with a friend about things that I buried, things I had thought but couldn’t say out loud. In her own distress, she was unfiltered, which drew me out. Vulnerability creates space for vulnerability.

Before they left town, she and Bethany came over one last time. She brought 2 loaves of cinnamon bread from Costco, which I thought was so funny and sweet. One loaf she left on the counter, and the other she stuck in my freezer. I cried when they drove away. She wasn’t well. I knew it, but I couldn’t make her stay. I tried. Her marriage was in a bad way, and her heart was sick. So sick.

She came back to visit, and she and her husband had dinner with me and Dale. It started out really well; we were laughing, talking about food, kids, it was so fun. We had a great time. The second time we went out, they were back again for a work trip. It started out the same way, but this time it became volatile. Dale asked about their marriage. Her husband got quiet, and she got angry as Dale pressed, probably felt abandoned by me, as I sat uncomfortably by, not saying a word. This time when we left them, Dale and I agonized over how bad things were for them, especially being so far away.

The next time she was in town, Bethany stayed with us, but when Charmayne came to pick her up, she seemed rushed and distracted. I came out to hug her, and she hurried to put Beth’s things in trunk and get back in the car. “Hi. You look pretty. Sorry about this,” she said as she flew past me. I stood there, sort of bewildered, and watched her drive away.

The summer of 2016, on July 3^rd, my daughter called me. It was a Sunday morning. We had driven to my mom’s for the weekend, and I was cleaning up breakfast dishes before we left for church.

“Mom?”

“Hi, Honey," It was unusual for her to call. "What’s wrong?”

“Mom, Bethany just called me. Charmayne died.”

“Wait… are you sure? What? What do you mean?” It seemed impossible. No. She had misunderstood.

I stared out the kitchen window at the flowering tree as she explained as many details as she could to help me understand. I felt like I had taken a blow to the stomach. It couldn't be real. I refused to believe it.

After that last dinner, she stopped returning my texts. I should have called her, but I didn’t. I was afraid she wouldn't answer. If she did answer, I was afraid of what she would say. I knew things were bad, worse than I’ve described here, for the sake of her dignity. But I didn’t call. Two days before she died, I had sent her a text.

“Charmayne, are you ok? I miss you. We’re still friends.”

I knew it probably fell on deaf ears, but I needed to keep knocking. We were still friends. I just didn’t know what to do.

Because of a terrible accident, my beautiful friend went home to Jesus. 

Her words ring in my ears every. single. day.

“I wish I would’ve spent more time on the things that mattered, like reading my Bible and praying. Those are the things that matter. Those are the only things that matter.”