Years have gone by, though it seems like just months or weeks – or even days ago – that I lost my sweet Maria. She was one of the most wonderful friends I ever had, and at age 15 I lost her. My heart was broken in two as soon as I’d heard the news. My mother told me as a tear streamed down her face; my mother, a tough woman who rarely shows her emotions, could hardly bear the awful news to her teenage daughter who had just come home smiling and giddy from staying overnight at another friend’s house. I remember the moment, the shock, the disbelief, the sadness, the surrealness, the brick wall that I thought I’d walked into.
Maria and I had been such wonderful friends for several years. She moved to Nebraska in the 6th grade and I bawled my eyes out at her going-away party. I remember as I hugged her, I touched her beautiful, long black hair. I hugged her so tightly that I think I made her laugh. My mom was waiting for me in the car so she could take me to my dentist appointment, and I cried all the way there. On the way home we passed by her house again, and I began crying all over again.
Three years later, Maria moved back to Michigan to live with her father. I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to spend time with her once again. We were no longer in the same town so I didn’t get to see her as often. I got to make a lot of new friends through her, however, and had such a blast every time I hung out with her. Now I find it hard to extract details from those visits; details that would help me re-live my memories with her and experience such joy in its purest form.
One summer night, Maria was struck by a drunk driver while she was walking down the side of the road not far from where she lived. The drunk driver who hit her fled the scene and hit a deer just a mile down the road. When the police inspected her car after the deer accident, they discovered human hair and that is when she admitted to what she’d done earlier in the night.
The woman went to trial and I attended the last court hearing, and then the sentencing that proceeded. Since she’d been given a plea bargain, there was no jury present at the trial and therefore, it was up to one man – the judge - to decide her fate. The woman was only given 7 months in jail for killing my sweet Maria. Words could not express our anger. By then, I had turned 16 and was still quite young, though I already recognized the injustice that had unfolded before my eyes.
Next week I am turning 29, and every year I wonder what Maria would be like today. Would she be married, have children, have a degree, be living happily ever after? Would we still be hanging out and making each other laugh? It hurts so bad inside when I think of her, and I weep for her. I long to have that friendship back, that girl who always stood up for what she felt was right. She even became stern with me occasionally when I made comments that she did not like. Just a few times, though, and I’m sure I deserved it.
About 1 or 2 times a year, I have a dream about her. I’ve discussed this with her older sister, but I am not sure how she took it. I told her that when I have these annual or semi-annual dreams of Maria, they are like no other. These dreams offer me a world where I see her, touch her, hear her, and laugh with her as if she were still alive. I even laugh in the dreams as I say to myself, “She never died. It never even happened.” I have swam with her in the ocean, walked by her side and have felt the wind blow her hair onto me, and have even felt her hug me tightly. Oh, how it aches to even recall those dreams because I begin missing those as well.
Maria’s mother passed away in 2000 from stomach cancer. I remember she died very quickly; she was diagnosed two months before her passing. I always wondered if she welcomed her passing as a way to see her Maria again. I still keep in touch with Maria’s father. Last week he lost his older sister and also lost his little brother a year ago, as well. He tells me that he wonders who is next. I don’t blame him.
I remember one time, I had stayed overnight at Maria’s house and the next morning we were getting ready to go out somewhere. I was doing my hair in the mirror out in her living room and I couldn’t get it to look right. I said, “No one is going to like my hair. Everyone is going to think it looks stupid.” Maria was standing there and she said to me, “Just be yourself. Do it the way you like it.” I never knew that those words uttered in her living room would serve as the baseline of advice for the rest of my life. It was like she could see into my future, see what kind of struggles I would have; like she’d suddenly had a vision while standing there and was moved to give me the advice that I would need later when….. when she would not be there to tell it to me.
I cry for many reasons when I think of her. I cry because it was horrible the way she died, the woman who killed her is a free woman today, she never got to live past age 15, I miss her badly, I could really use her in my life right now, and I won’t see her again for the rest of my life. I wish that I could remember our conversations, each word exchanged, each smile exchanged, everything.
Her dad videotaped us on Homecoming night one year and she introduced me on the video as her best friend. I asked him some years back if he still had the video, but he said he couldn’t find it anywhere. What I would give to see that video again, to see her alive and proudly throwing her arm around my shoulders, telling the video camera that “this is Jill, my best friend.”
I have always said that the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life was walk into the funeral home, turn the corner to the right, and see her lying in her casket in the front of the room. Her dad had taken my arm and walked me in, my parents right behind me, walked me slowly towards the front. I saw her black hair first, then as I got closer I saw her face and what she was wearing. At this point in my life, I had not ever lost anyone close to me – not even a grandparent or family friend. I could not stand close to the casket and I felt very scared. My breath was caught in my throat. I remember studying her chest and noticing that it was not moving up and down, that she really was not breathing.
I had written a poem to be read at her funeral, and when I got there her father asked me to read it in front of everyone. I told him I couldn’t do it. He tried to encourage me but I just couldn’t. So her older sister read it and it made me shake hearing my own written words echoing in that funeral home. Her sister sobbed as she read it, and I knew if I’d been up there I would not have done much better. Looking back 13 1/2 years later, I should have been a little braver and tried reading it myself.
They ended up cremating her sometime later. Plans had changed; they were going to bury her in Nebraska but it was too expensive. Since her parents were divorced, they split the ashes. So when I went to visit her dad one time, I saw her box of ashes sitting next to his bed. I picked up the box and held it in my arms. It was heavy – maybe it was just the box – but at least I got to hug her tightly once again (even if it was just half of her).
One of the things I’d mentioned in my poem was that I would carry her in my heart forever, that she would grow with me as I continued to grow. I know that at the very least, I must keep this promise that I made that day. I must live for her, accomplish for her, experience for her, laugh for her, love for her, forgive for her, remember for her.
My dear Maria Elena Hankins (September 25, 1979 – June 22, 1995)
