Those of you who know me well also know that I am no stranger to death. It has taken quite a few friends and relatives of mine long before their time. I have attended more funerals in one year than T.J. has in his life.
Tomorrow, I get to go to another one.
Thus begins a, likely extended, ode to an amazing young woman who taught me so much, asked for so little and was an influential part of my life for years.
On Monday I was informed that my old friend, Shawna Dempsey, had died while being air ambulanced to Calgary with a lung infection. She was 26 years old with the wisdom of a 90 year old, and the energy of an exuberant 10 year old, eyes wide open, always looking for a challenge, excitement and a way to live life to its fullest.
I have spent the rest of this week throwing myself into work and CPLED, ensuring that it all gets done before I travel home to pay my last respects. The people on the train must try to avoid looking at me when they see me cry quietly and look out the window into the perpetual darkness that is an Edmonton winter.
AND NOW, POST-FUNERAL (3 DAYS AFTER THE ABOVE), I HAVE A THING OR TWO TO SAY.
How is it that we can put a man on the moon, we can create robots and build skyscrapers to the heavens yet we can still die of a cold? I will never understand it. I don't think it is worth my time to understand. I suppose this is the time that people throw themselves to God, and rely on faith that there is truly a purpose to the chaos we call existence.
Fuck it hurts.
I have spent the past two days in Lethbridge, grieving and laughing, crying and reminiscing. Her funeral was exactly what such a painful memorial should be. Personal, full of Kleenex and all things Shawna Rae Dempsey Ali. I was amazed that so many people had been affected by her, touched by her spirit enough to come pay their last respects. I have the brief hope that one day, I too will have had such an impact on so many people.
The thing about funerals is that I always listen to the memories the stories and the discussion of perennial personality traits and wonder how well I really knew the person. I wonder if I didn't really know them, or if my sense of their person, their hopes and dreams were different than reality. Shawna was no different. I listened to the celebration of her life, saddened at how much I miss her, and how much I have missed of her remarkably exciting life while I have been off at school, chasing a dream that began so long ago.
The saddest thing, the thing that keeps my eyes from drying is that I have so many memories of Shawna that no one on the planet is able to share with me anymore. I didn't know Shawna through work, rugby or some other organization. I met her in math class, and tried to keep up for three years. Most of my memories, despite my best intentions, will fade with her, as I am not a good enough story teller to enroll anyone but her in the stories of her exploits.
Things I remember about Shawna Rae Dempsey:
1. We as a group made the Canacar - a wonderful celebration of our Canadian national holiday. We took hundreds of canadian flag print outs and taped them to her car. We covered the entire car, and when that wasn't good enough, we put Molson Canadian cans on her antenna and used a tie down to hook a Canadian flag to the roof. We drove down Mayor Magrath with pride, and quite a bit of attention!
2. Shawna had this great idea that anyone we had a crush on, our affection could be let out by a "drive by shouting." Yes, embarrassingly enough, we would drive by the houses of our very special interest and shout out the window (feebly) our undying love.
3. We went to Edmonton with Ben and Richard to visit my family while the boys participated in the NBA hoop it up. We took the back roads (the 36) up to Edmonton, so that Rich could see his hometown of Bashaw. Our journey was amazingly eventful for a 5 hour prairie drive. We got lost and found a dead end. Likely the only dead end in southern Alberta. After backtracking 1/2 an hour, stopping for chinese food dinner and driving around the bussling metropolis of Bashaw, we still managed to make it to Edmonton in 5 hours. Both Shawna and I drove, going roughly 170 down the empty prairie road. Of all things, we got a photo radar on the Whitemud doing 5k over the speed limit.
4. Math class, with Mrs. Whitehead was terrible. So terrible that we became friends to combat the boredom.
5. Shawna used to work picking beets in the field. Her heels were cracked and bleeding lots of time that I picked her up after work in a northside parking lot.
6. She made the best mac and cheese. I always wondered her secret until I saw her spoon heaps of cheese wiz into the pot.
7. She introduced me to Pride and Prejudice, and much of our time was spent on the couches in her parents basement, watching any of the huge collection of VHS. That is, until Brittney began her employment at Blockbuster and we had a much wider library to choose from.
8. We went camping at Park Lake with Jen Lumley. Jen had to work early so she went to bed. Shawna and I had a bad tendency of not sleeping when we were together, and spent the entire night, by the fire, discussing life and other things I cannot (sadly) remember. Half way through the night, staying up to see the sunrise became our primary goal and we stayed by the fire until a sliver of light emanated from the horizon. We had a better view from the road behind our campsite and walked out there with our lone flashlight. Almost immediately upon making it up the road, we came upon the silhouette of a hooded figure crouched on the side of the road. Shawna immediately screamed and jumped behind me for protection. Our flashlight quickly illuminated a yield sign.
9. Pretending to be sleeping at Shawna's house in the basement to avoid the wrath of her father (it was 2 am and we weren't quiet), Shawna told me to pretend to sleep with my mouth open, as everyone slept with their mouths open and he would notice if I had mine closed.
10. The beginning of summer Shawna and I made a goal to learn to do a back flip on her trampoline. In true Dempsey spirit she encouraged me, pushed me, cajoled me and by the end of our first day I had done a flip. When she tried, I was far too scared for her safety to even let her try!
11. She spent the night at my house in Edmonton with a friend on their trip to go Skydiving. She is the reason I went skydiving, and even mustered the courage. She always pushed the envelope, and would try anything twice. I watched the video of it a few months later at her house in Lethbridge - scared the crap out of me!
12. When I was in calculus in grade 12, she would knock on the classroom door and tell the teacher that she was there to pick me up and take me home to babysit Jordan. In reality, we were going to CCH to visit boys.
13. We went to the gym in the mornings before school in grade 12. She was always more physically fit than I was. Something I was always jealous about. She had much more drive than I, which is an amazing feat as I am generally not a lazy person.
14. We went to the bar in Lethbridge (one of three or four times in the bar back home) and ended up sitting with this really cute British officer stationed at CFB Suffield. He was completely smitten with Shawna, and when I would have ended the night, she convinced me to grab a coffee at Tim Horton's and we all talked for hours (if anyone has the undying urge to hear how that night ended, I fear that died with Shawna).
15. She and I sat at the same table at grad, along with Kevin and his family, and Jaymie and hers. Inadvertently, we all chose the same color dress.
16. Shawna opted to go to the dry grad, while Jen and I drank our faces off at the safe grad. Not wanting to miss a thing though, we promised to meet up afterward, to gossip about the nights events. Upon being delivered home by some nice, patient parents who I do not remember, in a car I don't remember, and how I got there I don't remember at all, I found Shawna, very soberly sitting in her car waiting. What happened after that I hardly remember, it is but snapshots instead of live video. My next snapshot is at a table with Shawna, Jaymie and Jen at Denny's on the southside. I heard the word macdonalds and apparently got up and left (we hadn't even got our drinks yet). Shawna bought me macdonalds and left it on my lap while her and Jaymie went into the restaurant and had breakfast. Jen and I slept soundly in the car. I vomited black that night.
17. When Jessie went missing, Shawna was the first one out there searching with me. We would walk through (along with Devon, Rich and others) the brush in the river valley, praying and screaming her name. We didn't find her. Shawna and I would take food to the people who made up the search party and while I talked to the people about their experiences, it was Shawna's job to listen to any conversation they had, hoping to catch a hint of anything, anything at all, that we could take, hold onto and hope for.
18. The last year of high school I may or may not have had a party or two at my house on Redcrow Blvd. I will never forget Shawna and Peter getting totally blitzed out of their minds, and hiding from us. I was so worried and canvassed the neighborhood hoping to find them. All I could hear was drunken giggling from a source I couldn't determine. Meanwhile they were hiding under a car, playing a very one sided game of hide and go seek.
19. She taught me how to blow smoke rings. I don't know how she knew, considering she never smoked.
20. We went swimming in the middle of the night at Park Lake, while camping with the boys. They weren't quite sure (and were remarkably slow at figuring out) what we were waving in the air. They thought it was our towels. Dummies.
21. I almost completely forgot about our hurrican Mitch experiment. we made a gingerbread house, so beautifully decorated - even tried to do it the natural way and made stained glass windows by baking lifesavers into the holes cut out. got a great idea to put it on a crate when icing the sides together. Of course, the sides fell down, and crashed to the ground. By the end of the night we were covered in icing sugar and our house was nothing more than a pile of rubble with some candies on it!
I am scared to stop writing, stop listing memories for fear that I will have forgotten them completely the next opportunity I have to recount the life that I once led, with a person that will always hold a special place in my heart. Her spirit was so strong and powerful, something I always wish that I could have learned from her. Where Shawna was, she was happy. If she wasn't happy, she would change it. She never lamented her circumstances; it wasn't in her to complain, but change was the order of the day.
She wrote her lifelong motto on a school picture she once gave to me:
The words, her words, have echoed in everything I have done and thought this past week. Live TODAY like there's no TOMORROW. Everything that I have done in my life in the past while has not been true to this timeless statement. There are relatively few days in the past 4 months that I would be proud to call my last, if any. So, on my 5 hour drive (4 hours crying) I promised Shawna and myself that I would take up her mantra where she left it off, and do it the justice it deserves.
I promise you Shawna, to be more like you.
