So almost 5 years ago to the day, I got an email out of the blue from an old friend. We became adults together in high school and beyond, but years had found their way between us and we lost contact.
Delissa Blair
Hey there stranger! Just thought I’d say hi and see how your life is going. Damian gave me this email a while back, but you know how things get busy…Hope you still check it!
Say hi back if you get a chance, I’d love to catch up!
——————————————————————————-
John Mulch10/9/11
to Delissa
Hello,
I don’t know a delissa blair. and seeing how delissa is such a common
name and all… you could be ANYBODYmy life is going great. its good hearing from you. its been what,
10-15 years or something ridiculous like that? did you notice we are
old now? who the fuck ever saw THAT coming?how are you? i notice a new last name, so tell me what you have been
doing all this time. obviously, a lot. i hope all is well and its good
hearing from you. keep in touch and tell me how your life is going,
stranger.<3
john
——————————————————————————
Delissa Blair
10/11/11
to me
Yeah, this getting old shit came on kinda fast didn’t it? I’ll be 37 next week and that seems awfully close to 40- wasn’t I just using a fake ID? What the hell?So, yeah I’ve been married for about 7 years. I married a Marine (didn’t see that coming did you? Me either!) and made it through two deployments to Iraq before he went and got his legs blown to hell. So the past 5 years we were living on the East coast, just outside of DC while he recovered and they tried to put his legs back together. They’ve done a damned good job, he can walk again-though he will never run. But, hey running sucks anyway right? We had a 10 month old baby, Mirabella, when he was injured, she just turned 6 in August. He retired from the Marine Corps in February and we moved to Prescott, AZ and bought a house here. He’s going to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University out here. I had my second daughter, Lily, in March, so she’s 6 months old now. My daughters are so fabulous! I love being a mom (who would’ve thought?). Before my husband was hurt I was a buyer for a Harley-Davidson dealership and traveled a lot, but I’ve only done some here and there consulting since then as we never really knew when the next surgery would be or how it would go. I think I’ve decided for now, that I’d rather be home with my babies then work- at least for now. We bought a great house a bit up the mountain and finally have trees around us rather than the filth and freeways of DC. The east coast sucks ASS by the way! I freaking hate it there!
So, what about you? What the hell have you been doing?
SO glad to hear from you!
We talked about getting together, about keeping in touch, but life kept moving and 5 years ago ALMOST TO THE DAY was the last time I heard from her.
Today, I got a text from a mutual friend. He told me Delissa was pregnant again, but this was not good news.
Her husband shot and killed her and by consequence, the unborn baby, this weekend.
I am completely destroyed. Say a prayer for her 2 surviving children. She was truly an amazing, unforgettable woman. The most intelligent person I have ever met.
I miss you Delissa, I have, since life took us in different directions, and will always love you in every single way that love, appreciation, and gratitude manifests.
See you on the other side, if I make it to the good neighborhood. Put in a good word for me, huh? And Say hi to Jim Morrison for me,ok?
I am probably going to be using this post as therapy, as Delissa and I were so close, so long ago, during such a formative time in our lives… her permanent loss is unbearable, but the loss we suffered because life had its way with us, i am having a hard time forgiving myself for letting my relationship with this wonderful woman go by the wayside.
I need some therapy on this. This is a serious loss to me, and her and I lived a lot of life together. Her death is part of me dying. I am not saying I am mourning myself; far be it. I have to wake up every day and see myself in the mirror. No, this is a more significant loss, to me. I have never met a person quite like her. She taught me so much, she let me teach her so much, and her intelligence. She was inquisitive and a genius. Yes she was good looking, but if that is all you noticed, you missed who she REALLY was. I am not sure how I am going to process this loss. No one but her really knows how close and for how long we were close. Her beauty was certainly a factor in my interest in her, but her mind, her heart, and her soul (as well as her razor sharp wit) owned me. I am so sorry we lost contact, and so grateful that even our brief base touching 5 years ago happened. There is a bit more to the email exchange, but that is mostly personal. Our last contact was on 10/13/11… and that is almost 5 years that I personally failed in keeping in touch with her.
I took her for granted and now shes gone.
I love her and always have, this is pure pain.
What I am trying to say is, the pain of her absence forever just drives home that we really did go our separate ways; go on different paths.
I never forgot her, and now that she is gone, I am kicking myself for not making sure she knew how much she meant to me.
Her maiden name was Gardner. As I knew her, and as I will always know her, she is Delissa Gardner. Thank you for your friendship, sweet princess. I owe you more than I can ever repay.
http://gunmemorial.org/2016/10/08/delissa-blair
Delissa was with me at my 1st Phish show in 1994. Those of you who know me, know I am a pretty rabid Phish fan today. She also was a part of a plethora of 1sts in my life (and no, I am not talking sex), as well as 1sts for her.
I met her in Miss Mallett’s Drama class at Palm Springs High. We were actually in a play together.
Taken by her beauty (as any normal healthy man would be), and as one of the few straight guys in the class, I am ashamed to admit I sexually harassed her, physically, clumsily.
But she was smarter than me, and compassionate about my inexperience and bumbling attempts at flirting. She saw something in me that I didn’t, and forgave my sad attempts and became my friend; my true and actual best friend in high school.
She was brutally honest, and infinitely approachable. She pushed me to be a better person and called me out when I wasn’t. I can’t even believe that I failed to realize the treasure I had from her as my close friend, and this finality has devastated me to the very core of who I am and how I could allow myself to lose touch with such an important person in my life. She deserved more from me than I gave her and I am wrecked that I didn’t express how important she was in my life, and still is today, even after her death.
I even tried the “Ferris Bueller” trick with her. I ditched school 1 day and wanted to hang out with her, so I called the school and pretended to be her father and said she needed to be let out and that I would pick her up (never mind that I was 15 and didn’t have a car).
It didn’t work, and the next day I was in the office being interrogated about the phone call. Delissa never spilled the beans, she wouldn’t. They just knew it was me as we were known associates at that time.
Another time, a guy was interested in her (a common theme as she was gorgeous, but out of most peoples league, purely on intellect, but one can’t stress enough how FINE and full of physical beauty that masked the supreme intellect she possessed; i cant stress enough how brilliant she was), but she had tolerated him, but he had crossed the line into creepy.
Not that she needed my help (she didn’t, she was STRONG; probably stronger than me, even today), but I let the guy know pretty clearly that he needed to back off, face to face, in less than civil terms.
While in high school, I obtained the Anarchist Cookbook (from a local bookstore via special order) because I wanted to own a copy of text that had been banned, despite the 1st amendment. I had shown it off to friends, and it was an additional “textbook” in my backpack in high school almost every day.
Well, this character, who wanted Delissa, somehow found out I had the cookbook.
He decided that I was going to make a bomb and blow him up for coming on too strong towards Delissa (yes, I was protective of her, but again, she could hold her own. and then some).
So this guy FILLED his backpack with ninja weapons; swords, stars, nun-chucks, the whole 9 yards and then some overkill. I had no idea this was happening until I was called into the office and searched for my copy of the Anarchist Cookbook to “prove” I was going to blow this fellow up.
As luck would have it, I wasn’t carrying it that day (I wont EVEN go into what I WAS carrying that they didnt find).
So this guy ended up getting expelled the last week of the school year for all his ninja weapons. He stayed away from Delissa from that moment on (spoiled little rich bitch).
I was very protective of her, but oddly, she didn’t need my protection. She was stronger than me, and smarter than me. While she appreciated my attempts to keep this character away from her, she quite clearly let me know she could handle herself.
And she could. She certainly could.
I have tons of anecdotes with her. They may seem pointless, but forgive me, this is therapy for me, and pretty urgent at the moment considering her impact on my life that still shows her influence to this day.
She was INCREDIBLY important in the most formative years of my life, and she never, ever betrayed me, even when I was at my most vulnerable, inexperienced, and transparent.
Her loss is a loss that will take a long time to process. I am realizing my ties to her are almost synonymous with ties to myself.
This isn’t a selfish equation either; it is because we grew up together and shared so many milestones together.
This is one of the deepest cuts I have ever experienced in my life. I pray for guidance on how to deal with this loss. She was so important to me, not in a romantic way, but her being her while we grew up together, and by consequence, made me a better person simply by knowing her.
I cant overstate how big of a loss this is to me, compounded by the fact that I could have been in close contact with her for the last 20 years or so, and didn’t. I failed to understand her importance to my life, and I will regret that until the day I die.
The worst part of time passing, is that the details and subtleties of events blur, to the point that there are significant gaps in your memory, or worse, the memory is incomplete and one unconsciously makes up the details to the detriment of the actual facts.
I have been praising Delissa to the point where I am almost accusing her of perfection. This isn’t true, and I sincerely doubt that she would want her legacy to be falsely claimed as “perfect.” So allow me to correct the record and illustrate an actual Delissa flaw.
So I am going to let you in on a little secret about Delissa. She was clumsy; VERY clumsy. She had the lightest, milky white skin that you ever saw, but she was always covered in bruises from bumping into things.
She may not be proud of this aspect of herself, but it is so totally endearing. When you meet someone of such intellect, such poise, such charisma, such beauty, and then you get to see a chink in the armor as adorable as simply being clumsy, it makes you love her more. Nobody is perfect, but her flaws were the closest that I can explain to making her human, considering she almost ran the table in every other aspect of her life.
We had grand plans, Delissa, Damian and I were talking about our Saturday Night Live Scheme so many years ago, when we were still in high school. We had a risky, elaborate scheme thats only payoff was money to afford us a weekend in new york and attending a live Saturday Night Live broadcast.
She was able to live in the moment, which is just one of the reasons she was a pleasure to know and to experience formative years of my life with.
I feel the tears. I am a man, so I can’t cry. I want to. I want to let it all out, have a catharsis over this.I feel the pain and raw emotion inside (which is rare as i am basically an emotional robot).
I want to ball for hours and let it all out. This hurts bad. I can’t overstate her importance in my life. But I can’t right now. I am too in shock, numb, and worried about her children. But I know that when it hits, it is going to hit hard. I feel the uncontrollable tears inside of me, but for whatever reasons, I can’t let the tears flow, no matter how desperately they want to come out.
This isn’t just a loss for me, or her kids, or her mom, or her sisters. This is a loss of an important person who had endless positive effects on peoples lives. People who didn’t even know she existed benefited from her tireless works. Some people are now attempting to humanize who she was and what she did; but that wasn’t her style. She wasn’t 1 to claim glory.
You can’t quantify this loss as there has never been anyone like her. The compass I use to navigate life no longer functions today, because she is gone. Nothing makes sense. Who she was, her life, how she lived it, and who she touched will not be erased by the tragedy that took this wonderful woman from us all. I don’t know what more to say except her loss is TRULY immeasurable.
The rest of my life will suffer this loss. I wouldn’t be who I am today without knowing her.
I can’t stress that enough. There are no words to describe her adequately. No, she wasn’t perfect, but she was a hell of a lot better than most of us, and I miss her now badly and cant even imagine a world without her. Rest in Peace Delissa. You were always my friend, and you always will be. I only hope I was able to give back a fraction of what you gave to me, back to you.
And I am SOO very very sorry I allowed us to grow apart and missed important milestones in your life. Your death was not a milestone I wanted to be a part of, but I will do my best to let the world know what we collectively lost when you were murdered.
Fare you well, Fare you well, I love you more than words can tell.(truly, honestly, deeply)
https://youtu.be/A9uyMjzmT3k
Love
Here is a pinterest picture she posted that I think should be propogated
I am so sorry I let those years get between us. I am even more sorry I never told you how important you were to me. Knowing you is a serious highlight of my life, and knowing you are gone is unbearable, especially since I failed at keeping in touch and letting you know how important you were to me.
I am pretty sure you wouldn’t want me to be as despondent as I am over this, but I am. Thank you so much for sharing so much of your life with me.
Not a moment was wasted, by my account, despite the many hours we spent idling together, enjoying the simple pleasure of doing nothing but enjoying each others company.
Every second was a pleasure and I wish I was more of a man and actually told you how important and how much you meant to me when I had the chance. I have no idea how I am going to get over this unbearable loss. Much love, gratitude, and sadness that it is now too late to have you in my life. Sincere profound thanks for allowing me to know you intimately.
Those of us who knew you, know how deep your loss is. I am CERTAIN even your murdered knows what he stole from the rest of us. You were truly one of a kind. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for being my friend. My life would be less without knowing you.
unbearable