Memories are all We have Left

Eunice, Mark, Bradley and Mine Franklin.

One of my best friends since I can remember, and her beautiful family... all wiped out in a car crash on the 15th of September 2011.  It was all over the news but I still can't believe it.  I'm still waiting for her to call me, with her random sense of humor, just saying "Hey, whatsup?  I hear I'm dead?!"

I know it sounds harsh but that's just Eunice for you, it definitely rubbed off on me.

I miss them... so, so much.  I spent so many weekends on the farm with them, so many nights out with Eunice, so many tears and smiles and screaming and bitching and laughing and working on the farm and watching movies and drinking and and and...

I have so many memories I want to share I don't even know where to begin!

Like the time we finished two 5L boxes of cheap red wine, while painting the Big 5 on the one wall of her house.  We even ended up throwing sand into the paint, trying to create a 'rough texture'!  Later, buzzed beyond comparison, we ended up playing pool next door at the nudist colony.  I still got into so much trouble with my boyfriend at the time.

The countless times I drove to her house as a little girl on my bright pink bicycle, just to annoy her coz she too 'grown-up' to spend time with a little girl.  She was high school, I was primary school, at the time.  Yet, she was never horrible or rude.

All the memories on the farm... wow... I have to say it scares me to think of going back there, when she's not there.  When they are not there.  I always ran around with Bradley, chasing after him and then having to run away from him a moment later.  We used to tickle each other senseless too!  Mine is the quiet one, though.  She'd come and cuddle you a little, and then run after her brother.  Or she was glued to her mom or to me.  Just kind of sitting there with us, playing with our hair or something she finds fascinating for the time being.

Mark... well...

Mark was drunk most of the time, to be quite honest.  I didn't specifically not like the guy, but I hated him for what he did to his family and how he treated them.  He was never violent or anything like that... he was just... not there.  And I don't mean he was lying around in bars all the time, he drank at home, always.  I mean, he just wasn't there.  But of course, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, they say, so I'll just leave it at that.  Apart from all his faults, I know that Mark loves his family with all his heart and that they meant the world, the moon and the stars to him.

Eunice, as my friend Jean-Marie so aptly put it, can only be described as having a hippie-personality.  She was always, okay most of the time you saw her (remember I knew her through her tears and heartbreaks, too), smiling and laughing and cracking jokes.  She was always playing with her children or discovering something new with them, going on little adventures and getting dirty as little piggies on the farm.  She always had some kind of fantastic plan for the future, hatching and developing in her mind.  She was always building things and making things... tables, chairs, little out-houses on the farm, obstacle courses and play areas, pools and boma's, decorations and such.  Eunice was stern and steadfast, too.  She always knew what to say, but never what to do, in her own life.  (She was always asking for advice and sharing the small things in her day to day life!).

To think... I used to get annoyed sometimes, with the things she did and the things she shared.  Of course now I would give anything for her to tell me that Bradley caught another shongololo or drew a perfect spider today!  I would give anything for her to share sh!t like to Mine is doing great with her potty trianing, or that Mark passed out drunk again, or even that she actually got some action the night before.

I miss them.  And I'll never stop missing them.  I'll never stop wondering and hurting.  I'll just learn to live with it, I guess.  Like we all do when something like this happens in our lives.

Thank you to all the friends and family who stood by me and by us, through this difficult time.  We have faith that Eunice and her family are safely in God's arms... Happy and Together.  Forever.