In the months before …

In the months before …

In the months before …

In the months before Claire’s death, she was posting collages on Instagram that her therapist recommended she create. Art therapy was a new aspect of Claire’s therapeutic repertoire, and it seemed she quite took to it. One of the collages contained her sobriety clock. She had been sober for nearly seven years. I was always so proud of her for her commitment to sobriety. Claire never discussed her sobriety in detail, so I never knew how easy or difficult it was for her to manage. In that same collage was a picture of her and I from earlier in the year. It was winter, and we had just gotten piercings—I think maybe when I got my tragus. In all the years I knew Claire, we had never taken a picture together, and I didn’t want to take this picture either, but she insisted precisely because we had no pictures together. I look sad and vacant in every shot she took. Partly because it’s hard for me to feign a smile on command, but also partly because I was entering a difficult emotional phase in my life. I suppose I was sad and vacant. The rest of the pictures in her collage were either solo pictures of herself, or with her boyfriend, or her dog (a pug named Sid). In one of the selfies, she had a pink Furby on her shoulder.

Claire’s caption for the collage she titled MMXIX [2019]: was a hopeful one:

Don’t you gotta wanna hate that moment when 2019 is simultaneously the worst/best year you’ve yet to haunt the earth and everything you’ve been running from for double digit years hits you like a speedball laced with elmer’s glue, and bro u are STRAIGHT UP not havin a good time but somehow in the process you collide with the loveliest creatures (including the love of your life & long furbz) that show you: that love isn’t just a word on an overpriced Papyrus card, IT’S OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY, healing isn’t linear and…You would do the whole shit show over again because climate change will soon kill us all {jk sorta}, it could be exponentially worse, I have access to all of the resources I need, and there is always hope

The caption was followed by two bat emojis. Bats and Furbies would have a significant presence in Claire’s last few posts. And not just the typical Furby of the late 90s, but long Furbies. A phenomenon that was both horrific and darling, and as always, perplexing. But that was precisely Claire.

Claire was into everything weird and macabre, and we bonded over our shared obsession with true crime and serial killers. I came across a serial killer coloring book sometime during our friendship and added it to my Amazon cart as a reminder to buy it for her for her next birthday. But I never did. I’m not sure why. I bought the coloring book this past summer along with a 64- pack of Crayola crayons, and my boyfriend and I each colored a serial killer late one evening. He knew the significance of the coloring book, and although it creeped him out a bit, he happily humored me. He chose Catherine Wood, and I chose Ed Gein. In the 80s, Catherine Wood and her lover, Gwedolyn Graham, worked at a nursing home together and started smothering patients as some sort of cruel and odd “love bond.” The pair started out choosing victims by name, in hopes of spelling M-U-R-D-E-R but devised a new plan after realizing it was hard to find certain letters. (How many names start with “u”?) Ed Gein was a serial killer in the 50s made famous by the human paraphernalia authorities found in his house after his arrest: a belt made from female human nipples, a pair of lips on a window shade drawstring, nine vulvae in a box, and bowls made from human skulls among many, many other grotesque things. Gein’s gruesome possessions were both from people he murdered and graves he robbed.

I don’t remember sending Claire this, but I know I did because the text exchange is eternalized on her Instagram (the last vestige I have of Claire’s life and personality). I sent her a meme of Kermit the Frog talking to evil Kermit the Frog where “normal” Kermit says to himself “don’t be weird at this social event,” and “evil” Kermit says “give strangers unnecessary information about serial killers.” The text I accompanied with it said “I saw this on goodreads and thought of you hahaha.” Claire posted it on her Instagram with a typical dark but clever caption:

“So did you know that Jeffrey Dahmer had a spaniel mix named Frisky? Also many people theorize that Dahmer’s behavioral problems began around age 4 after he underwent surgery to correct a double hernia. Further, his favorite color was navy blue and he really likes the new mango Diet Coke flavor.” Oh wait that last one is actually about me.

Claire had the most intricate and superlative sense of humor. I was often impressed at how sharp and transcendent her wit was. In one of our numerous chats about Claire, her boyfriend and I both shared how much we revered Claire’s sense of humor. I never had the chance to meet him, but I’m happy to know he cherished that aspect of her as much as I did. It comforts me knowing he loved her fully.

In the months before …

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