Rox

"It's so far... A lot of life can happen while you're gone," my mother always told me. It was true. One step further than Japan, and I'd be one step closer to home. Life 'happening' was a fear we both constantly mulled over every time I got ready to board an airplane. Such knowledge has never made it easier to stomach when it actually does though.

About six years ago, I had a job working in a small English writing center on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, Michigan. Even though it was just part time, and at a community college, I quickly found a niche--my home away from home, working with this small, yet incredible group of people. Passionate. Unabashed and outgoing. Eclectic and unbelievably intelligent. They taught me the same. Inspired me. To love words, love ink, unrelenting sarcasm and the smell of a well-worn paperback. Together, we reveled in lampooning grammatical idiocy, while debating semicolons, subject/verb agreements, and the occasional proper noun functioning as a verb. If what they say about words being weapons is absolutely true, our tiny four-walled paradise was the goddamn Springfield Armory on Grand Traverse Bay. Three short semesters with them shaped every piece of who I've become today.
And so 8000 miles away, for me to hear tonight that a car accident has left me with one less of an imprint, is nothing short of heartbreaking.
I have a Thesaurus, but I wouldn't even know where to start.
We have lost a friend; the English language, another master, and our armory, a model soldier.


We all know she is peacefully resting in a better place.
I heard that English in heaven is fucking impeccable.