Blogophilia 15.7 Fire And Ice

Fire - Sassysue King.  Flaming red hair, spicy personality, short but never, ever underestimated.  A sure spitfire.

Ice - me.  Dead inside.  Seeking numbness from emotion.  Given up on life, always looking at the negative.

I didn't want to do a write for Blogophilia this week.  Even after I promised Sue and Marvin that I would try harder.  The news of Sue's death has devastated me.  But I feel I owe it to Sue, to honor her, by putting this out this week.

I met Sue as most of you did, through Blogophilia back in the Myspace days.  From the start she was always encouraging me to write, even if not for an audience, but to write for myself.

Most of you Blogophiliacs know of my struggles over the years with drug addiction and my journey to live a sober life.  For those of you that are new - well, there you go.

Some of you may not know that at the time we met, Sue did volunteer work with a needle exchange where she lived in London, Ontario.  She worked with addicts and the police force, and I guess because she read my writings of my struggles with drug abuse, it caught her eye and we became fast friends.  We communicated by email and instant message, never met in person or spoke over the phone, but that didn't diminish the depth of our late night conversations or our friendship.

She told me of her nephew who also struggled with drug addiction and coming to terms with his own dark demons.  She told me his story and I told her mine, and she would give me advice about, oh, everything.  Most recently I was asking her advice about therapy.  And always, always she kept at me to write out my feelings, whether by blog or by personal journal.

She was always there to hold me up through the dark times, with an encouraging word or a funny tidbit to make me laugh.  Lots of times over the years I've been unbalanced - no equanimity there - but even when I went silent for months at a time in the depths of my addiction, every week she would message me encouraging me to do that week's Blogophilia prompt.  Or to just write, "just fucking write it out for god's sake!  No matter the subject, Just Write."  And if I did write, she would always message me with an ,"oooooh, you wrote, good for you!!!!! :)   "   Often, she would be the only one to comment on my blog.  She was recently encouraging me to branch out with my writing, to try some of her flash writing groups.

The last time we communicated was Thursday, May 29.  I knew she'd been fighting a cold/flu for weeks but she said she was hopeful to find relief at her accupuncturist's, who at the next appointment was also going to give her some natural remedies to try.

I'm still stunned that it happend so quickly.

I hope that she knows how much she meant to me.  I didn't tell her nearly enough.

So Sue, in answer to your unspoken question, yes, "I did Blogo" this week.  For you.



Blogophilia Topic 15.7:  Fire and Ice
(Hard, 2 pts:  incorporate the opposite meaning of "equaniminty")
(Easy, 1 pt:  include dark demons)

Topic guess - Sandy Glenn

bonus pic phrase guesses:
red hot
too hot to handle
on fire