Our Last Texts

It's almost two years since my cousin, confidante, former roomie, and dear friend/pain in the arse passed away. The last time we saw eachother was the night before Donna's last birthday (her 43rd) when I stopped over to help my niece, Nicole, Donna's daughter, clean up her shithole of a bedroom. The very next day I sent Donna a text, not knowing it would be our last communication. I'm just glad I was able to say I love you that one last time.

In the last year of Donna's life she went through a pretty heavy emotional change in finally coming to the realisation that she was gay. We had some deep conversations and I'm grateful that I was the one she felt that she could turn to and confide in. A couple months after coming out we were talking about an episode of Lost and she said that I was her constant. That person that's been there through it all and is always dependable. So in my phone she was listed as Penny and I was her Desmond. Here are the screenshots that I took from Donna's cell phone and sent to myself since I had already deleted them from my phone. I was sitting out back of the house in Fishtown, only hours after Donna's body was discovered and only a handful of minutes since she had been taken out of the house. I was smoking a cigarette with Nicole and trying to make sense of a totally and completely senseless loss that I still find hard to grasp.

 

 

(The photo in "Desmond's" contact info is the one I sent to Donna after Nicole and I arrived in Rome. Oh, and clearly I removed my phone number. I'm trying to deter stalkers...)