Missing

There are dozens of reminders of Karen around me every day. Places we took the kids (damn near every single park in the North Denver metro area, I believe), restaurants we ate dinner (mostly sushi) at, stuff in my house, etc.

The most heartbreaking of these is her picture on my fridge. In it she's with her two girls, Reagan, 6, and Peyton, 3. It used to be one of those things that was there but that I looked past. Now every time I go to my kitchen, I see it. It hurts to look at, but it also reminds me that I have a lot of responsibility to Karen in terms of those girls.

After I hung up with her sister the morning I learned of K's death, I sat on my bed sobbing and, quite suddenly and very intensely, I felt like she was there, in the room with me somehow, waiting ...

I felt like she needed me to tell her something. I will never believe she wasn't there, and that she had to be there for a specific reason.

I promised her repeatedly that I would be as involved with those girls as I could be. That I would help love them in her absence.

Anyway, that was all a digression — what I wanted to point out was how many reminders of Karen I have in my life. It's probably hard to know someone for 30-plus years and not have that.

The strangest?

My bra. It makes me laugh.

The last time I bought bras, I was with Karen. We had gone for sushi and had a couple of cocktails. We decided to go across the street to shop and let some of the alcohol wear off before driving home. We weren't hammered, mind you ... merely a little giddy with drink.

We tried on some clothes. I lamented the shape my bras were in. She did, too. Not mine. Hers. Both of us are so busy being moms and being moms who work from home that things like our stupid bras get neglected a lot.

"Let's go look at bras," she said. We headed that way, but I knew I wouldn't try any on that night (talk about a buzzkill — you really have to be in a certain mood to try on bras). But Karen, my always-trusted friend, held up a bra and said, "I've bought these before and they're good. Buy a couple and you can always bring them back if you don't like them."

I did. I still have them.

Funny, isn't it, how something like that can evoke memories. Probably even funnier that I sometimes look at myself in the mirror before getting fully dressed in the morning and start crying. If you didn't know better, you'd really think I lacked self-esteem.

But I just miss my friend. And her superior bra knowledge.

(Love you, K. Miss your laughing face.)