Feelings vs. Reality

 Far be it from me to pretend I am immune to being driven by my feelings rather than the reality of any situation.  I am a human.  I have a heart.  I cry at old MacDonald's commercials when a toddler in p.j.'s with feet in them leaves a coupon for Santa Clause.  The NBC hit series This is Us is not watched without a supply of Kleenex next to me.  I may be happy that a kid from my alma mater is playing in the Superbowl I will not root for him if he plays for a team from L.A.   I have decided to forgive Richard Sherman for going to Stanford.

Because I can be emotional I held off on writing about all the stuff hitting the news these past ten days.  I have a stick or two in the fires of controversy surrounding the kids from Covington and the Native American Elder.  However, I know that my take on it could be driven by my emotional reaction and so I wanted to put some distance between me and what happened before I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

I was prepared to write about it all today - about my bias because of my experience with someone who pretended to be a Vietnam Combat Veteran and my bias because I am the aunt of young men and I have seen them smile and smirk when they are so dang uncomfortable about having to stand up for what they believe that their faces do not seem to connect to their internal feelings.  I was prepared to be fair and loving and Catholic and to suggest that we all need to calm down and stop jumping to conclusions because the people involved are a color we currently despise.

However, this morning I woke to the news that a friend I made on Facebook over a decade ago had passed away.  Suddenly a man with a drum and a kid wearing a MAGA cap was just not that important to me.

Antoinette was spunky and funny and what the mainstream would call an 'unconventional beauty'.  She had a smile that would light up the internet.  She wore her spirit with pride - you got what you saw and what you saw was someone intelligent, compassionate, loving and kind.  She was so darn beautiful.

We became friends through football.  She started as a Niner Sister and became so much more than that to me.  She was someone who would talk with me about so much, about the problems we were both seeing in this country and the weird reactions people had to someone who thinks in a different way then they do.  We did not always agree politically but we never ended a conversation without thanking the other for listening and sharing.  She was my touchstone to so much I have lost - a friend who did not label me for my color or religion as someone bad.  She was so willing to talk, to give her perspective on life and never once shamed me for asking a question.

We shared a lot - football and Niners being our foundation - in terms of our values; family, the law, respect for those who have served, the demand for justice and the refusal to give any quarter when it came to the standards of behavior we shared.  We did not see that being a conservative or a liberal meant the end to good manners.  Woe be to any man or woman who tried to talk down to us, especially if we were on the same thread.  We could back each other up with grace and dignity, even if we were on opposite ends of an opinion.

That type of friendship is so rare.  To have found it on Facebook is even rarer and I cannot quite fathom never again seeing her post a Funky Friday dance video or going through the upcoming football season without her.

To say I will miss her is an understatement.  I am glad she is no longer sick and that I see her now as a powerful prayer warrior is true, but I am going to miss her so much.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and May Perpetual Light shine upon her.

Antoinette, please.....

Don't forget to pray for me before the throne of the Most High.