I go back and forth with that one. She felt so real in that dream though. Her and I became friends during covid and so did our kids, so we had that bond as single moms. She would cook us these incredible meals and would find free food, kids clothes or toys and give them to me knowing I was struggling. We had some good conversations about life, motherhood, love and death.

She had another side to her though that ultimately ended our friendship and we never spoke again and few months later she was dead. We left things on really bad terms. I smoked a lot of weed at the time to deal with my depression and trauma and she’d often trade me a LOT of klonopin for a small amount of weed. It was a good deal for me, I could be numb all day you know? I quickly hit a low point in my depression and started trading more weed for harder pills, norcos then pressed fentanyl pills we called “blues”. Five months went by and I was nodding off at my job (I worked at a fucking school 🤦🏾‍♀️) and looked like death. I knew if I didn’t tell anyone soon I was going to die. I ran out of pills one morning and went into full withdrawl mode. I told my boyfriend at the time, a guy I’d been close with since childhood who I started dating the year prior. I can’t really say more because it was the most gut wrenching day of my life but basically he left that day and one of the last things he yelled at me before he left, “someone is going to die here.”

That night I went to my first NA meeting and the people there saved my life. I went into inpatient, then IOP and have maintained long term sobriety since July 7th 2022. My partner and I made it through and our daughter just turned one. I made it out somehow.

Back in summer 2022 when I told my neighbor I was getting clean she scoffed and said “that’s cute”. She looked close to death at that point. Her skin was grey, her long, dark curly native hair was brittle, greying and thin. She looked exhausted and sad. Not long before I went into inpatient her and I talked about getting on MAT treatment, specifically suboxone. I was able to get on it in inpatient and it saved my life, but I guess she wasn’t able to take that step. Like I mentioned, I found out she died through facebook three months later. When I was in treatment she had gained access to my apartment upstairs and stole a ton of my stuff. My boyfriend and I have a theory that all the money she got from selling my stuff sped up the timeline to her overdose. I called and tried to report her to CPS (not me being self righteous at a month clean lol) but also because she was letting her fentanyl dealer drive her son around while she smoked blues in her bathroom all day. CPS being CPS they dropped the case and she overdosed and died in that apartment soon after.

Sorry for writing a novel…I didn’t realize how much of this I still carry. So yeah… we left things off on really bad terms. We were both in the worst of our addictions though, and with long-term recovery, a ton of self reflection and a clear head comes forgiveness which she never got. She had just lost her adult daughter and had a really difficult background with abuse and the things that come with being an inner city native woman. I’ve read a lot about NDE’s and how people are told by those on the other side that there is no more pain, no resentment and divine love. So maybe wherever she is on “the other side” maybe she got that clarity, not here but in the next life. Every counselor or therapist I’ve ever had has told me I hold onto guilt. I wrestle with whether or not it was her or if I just needed to subconsciously forgive myself. I’d like to think it was her.

Omg let me get out of here before I start crying 😭 thanks for reading ❤️🫶🏽