So…the other day I talked to my dead ex-girlfriend.

No this isn’t the beginning to a really clever joke, though she would have delivered one hell of a punchline!

Before you call me “woo-woo” or think I am going insane, I hope you will stick around to read a little bit further.

In case you have no idea who I am or why I like writing about death and grief, I’ll give a quick recap:

11 years ago I fell in love with a fiery redhead named, Coop. She had the laughter of 10 hyenas and was unapologetically dark humored. Deadpan is how she described it. I spent a lot of moments watching her deliver the driest jokes while sipping on her coke, coffee, and monster (yup, all at once.) Told ya she was a spitfire!

She had cancer btw. Yup you guessed it, the kind you die from.

I remember sitting in the hospital room with her and my mom discussing nicotine. I unmindfully said “it’s not the nicotine that kills you…” [insert foot into mouth] There I was, sitting in front of my dying, former ex-smoker girlfriend, declaring a death sentence. (Good thing I’m not that powerful.)
After a long, suspenseful pause — she laughed her ass off.

Life with her was spontaneously routine. At chemo appointments we did our best to entertain the nurses with our (well, her) witty humor. We’d leave her treatments and immediately pig out on turkey burgers at Culpeppers, she swore they were the best in town. Truth is, being in her company made even the hospital food taste good.

I used to joke and say that cancer patients were worse than pregnant women with their requests. Sicilian pasta from The City Diner was her second favorite dish. She always said “thank you,” but she wasn’t afraid to ask. Exhausted by all the running around, I was compelled to serve.

When people receive a terminal diagnosis, they tend to live their life a lot different — they begin to have more fun and they definitely don’t sweat the small stuff. Though scared shitless, she embodied a graceful sense of freedom and confidence. Oh and she wasn’t afraid to pull out her “cancer card” when necessary. Especially if someone was going on about their melodrama. She said “oh that sucks, but try having cancer.” We’d hold a serious face for as long as possible and then crack up.

Coop was a badass. She gave very little fucks and she laughed a lot.

I was a young 20 year old woman without a clue in the world. I was naive, dramatic, and unaware of the harm I caused. She delighted in my young love. I may not have done a whole lot right during my time with her, but I can say I loved her extravagantly.

In December 2008 Coop died. And here’s the kicker — I wasn’t there when it happened. Nope, not even weeks before. We had gone our separate ways for intimate reasons I won’t share now (perhaps in another post.)

Fast forward 10 years later.

It turns out that guilt can eat a person alive. I have spent a large part of my 20s running from the guilt and pain that I acquired after Coop died. I could think of a million reasons why I should have been there and what I could have done to make things different. Could I change the outcome? Of course not, but man did I cling to the possibility of that.

“How could I let someone I love so dearly die alone?” — This was like a broken record in my head. A mantra that haunted me for years.

Grief and guilt sat in the pit of my belly and I subconsciously said “fuck it” to living my life. Sure I traveled, met some cool people, and chased my dreams a little, BUT one key component was missing. I wasn’t truly living. I was creating so much motion so that I didn’t have to sit still and face my guilt, shame, and pain.

By the grace of this crazy Universe, I found my way back to St. Louis a year ago. I took time to sit and I committed to taking a look at my shit (still in progress.) I knew it wasn’t going to look pretty and it was insanely uncomfortable, but you know what I found?

I found out that I am woman who loved someone to death. A woman who is courageous and capable of expanding her heart to let people in. A woman who will bring you Sicilian pasta from City Diner at 1am.

Wait, so how did I talk to my ex girlfriend if she died?

I saw a medium. And not quite the Whoopi Golberg in Ghost type.

She reminded me that Coop didn’t want anyone around. In her translated words, she said she didn’t want me to see her as an “old dying dog.” She wanted to me to remember the laughter and the beautiful times we shared together.

It took me over 10 years, doing some intense self-forgiveness work, and a medium (okay, well really 2 because even I am a bit of skeptic) to realize that everything happened exactly as it was supposed to. I wasn’t supposed to be there when she died.

I’ve been in the realm of death and grief for a few years nows and I know that guilt is a huge blocker in the grief process.

If I could impress upon you one thing, it would be this:

Forgive yourself. It’s easy to sit and blame ourselves for what we could have done or should have done. Please know that everything you did was enough. All of it. No exceptions.

So here’s the punchline guys, Coop was an atheist and she’d crack up hysterically if she was around and reading this. “A medium? Ha.” — That’s what I hear her saying in her southern drawl.

Call me crazy, but I’ll keep talking to her. She’s with me every step of the way forward.

Funny thing is, she never left. It just took me WAY Too long to realize that. But to be fair, she knew I was a stubborn one!