Darcy O: no, wait, come back…

Darcy died yesterday in Missoula.   She’s the one holding G above, in a photo taken on Patricia’s front steps.  Darcy is someone who you meet once in life, and you want to keep them close, because in one direct sentence she could give you great advice, make you laugh, and make you feel better about being alive.   She was strong and beautiful and became more so even though her body was shutting down from scleraderma over the past four or five years (it seems so long, although, to her, time was measured from one day to the next).  Or maybe, even more so, because she was aware so much more than we all are, that she was dying, because she lived through death every day, until yesterday, when the pain was too great.  Your first reaction, after a sense of relief that she’s no longer in pain, is:  fuck, what are we going to do without her?  Her love, with Steve, was distilled and purified into a cohesive, supportive union that didn’t have to be talked about, you could just sense it at the house, like Gidget the cat, unconditional.  April 9, i went over after work to chat with Darcy, see the work that Steve has been doing on the shower, cutting and tiling the square-cut stones on the downstairs bathroom:  Darcy chose them, a honey and saffron-colored stone skin for the shower, saffron walls, travertine floors.  And Steve cut them, creating a masterpiece of a shower.  When the sun comes in through the window, it will be like bathing in drops of Nepalese rain, and the stone comes to life.  My heart goes out literally, leaking, it feels like, to Steve and her parents and sister Kendra and nephews and friends like our Carolyn and Angela and Lee who watched their Darc die many times over, but in the process got to know her completely in every excruciating, glorious detail, and appreciate every last minute that she was alive with us.  Carolyn says that peonies were definitely Darcy’s favorite, so peonies will bloom for Darcy here.   She was on the first pictures on my little camera, in Missoula on the steps at my sorely-missed Patricia’s house, laughing in July 2002 as the sun went down and we walked down with Carolyn and Diana to meet Greg at DQ.  And then the last photo, taken by a stranger at some noodle restaurant on February 14, 2008.  We love you and miss you Darc.