Comedy and Tragedy

Today we finally had the goodbye party for Ashley. I just love Petco. They essentially gave us half the store to set up for the food from Dos Coyotes.

Ashley's mother, who recently relocated to Davis, was there and I finally, after all these years, got to meet her.

This was Buttercup's first week at Petco and she was a big hit. People carried her around instead of leaving her in the cage.

(But no takers for Buttercup or for Polly or Shiloh.)

I did give Ashley the draft copies of the pages of the book, so people got to look at it and get a feeling for what it is going to be like (also after my complaints, CVS gave me a 20% discount on it, which was nice).

There was food and fun and cake and laughs and everybody had a great time. The best thing about the going away party was that the guest of honor isn't really going anywhere, so it wasn't a "goodbye forever" sort of event.

Later in the evening, I was going through Facebook messages and found a strange one from a friend, which said simply "I can't find everyone's numbers...very bad news. call me." There were 30 replies to the message, each one somewhat veiled, but seeming to offer condolences.

I had a terrible feeling. I've known her for several years. During that brief period when gay people were permitted to marry, she married her wife. I haven't seen much of the two of them, but we see them at theatrical events and I have never seen my friend when she wasn't glowing, the two of them looking so incredibly happy together.

Several months ago, the wife lost her job, due to a financial down-sizing. I have been following the saga through her Facebook status updates and knew how frustrated she's been with one unsuccessful interview after another. I've watched the messages between the two of them when Kym was interviewing far away and how happy they were to be reunited, and then the next unsuccessful interview.

When I read my friend's message, I sent a note to a mutual friend, who confirmed my fears that the wife had taken her own life. My heart just aches for my friend and their family and the many, many friends they had here in town.