Smelly Pooter

My friend Shelley HATED to be called Smelly Pooter. Her name was Shelley Tuder, and it just seemed like a natural progression to the four of us. Nicknames were fairly hard to generate for the rest of us - Melissa Hughes, Becky Nichols and Sara Reno. I was ocassionally "Reno-head," or "SaraReno" (all one word), Becky was "BeccaSue," and Melissa became "Missy" if we were all reeeeeeeeally drunk. Shelley was always Smelly Pooter, and I'm sure it didn't seem fair to her.

So we spent our entire Sophomore and Junior years in high school together. We had been friends for years, but these were our glory days. We went to our first concert together (Oasis), dated boys who were best friends with each other, went to parties together, got our drivers licenses together, borrowed clothes, cars and cd's from each other, worked at nasty fast food restaurants.. we were completely inseparable. You know what I'm talking about here - Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams and Tom Petty all sang about it.

But something happened near the end of our junior year, and Shelley all of a sudden just stopped caring. She stopped caring about everything - school, friends and anything else that used to matter. She failed completely in school, and ended up not being able to take any of the same classes to which the three of us had progressed. It frustrated me - we were supposed to walk across the stage together. I had planned this for years! Who did she think she was ruining my dream?

She got a whole new group of friends - friends who were younger than us, because they were in the classes she ended up re-taking. We didn't get it. We called them the Manson Family, because all they did was listen to Marilyn Manson and wear makeup (and I'm referring to the boys, here).

I was 19, engaged, and living in my first house when Melissa knocked on my door to tell me that Shelley had died. So, so strange that I lived across the street from our high school. How many times had we walked that stupid track in gym class together? Seriously - she couldn't possibly have died. I still had her Goo Goo Dolls cd and her flannel shirt I had borrowed when we were 16! No, this was a different Shelley Tuder - not my Smelly Pooter. No way.

I don't remember much about that day. I walked the track. I listened to that Goo Goo Dolls cd. "And scars are souvenirs you never lose, The past is never far. Did you lose yourself somewhere out there, Did you get to be a star? And don't it make you sad to know that life Is more than who we are?" I listened to Oasis and thought about that first concert. I cried until I thought I would throw up, but no one saw me or heard me.

I wondered why I had been so upset with her. What did our graduating (or not) have to do with our friendship?!? So many things in her life that I didn't know about.. she had a fiance. She was studying to get her GED. Why wasn't I there with her? Why wasn't I helping her? She was gone now.

We went to the Olive Garden the night before the funeral - all of us. My sister made them save her a place at the table. When we were leaving, she slid the silverware into her purse.

At the funeral the next day, I laid a white rose on her casket. My sister gave the silverware to Shelley's father. I think Shelley would have preferred her method instead of mine.

Sometimes I go see her. She's in the "Garden of Meditation" now, which is kind of funny, because of her favorite past-time in high school (but we won't go there). I sat and told her all about my wedding one afternoon, and how beautiful the bridesmaid dress would have looked on her. Zion played another day while I explained how wonderful being a mother was, and how I wished she could have had that opportunity too. I try to visit around our birthdays - she's 5 days younger than me.

I miss her.

"I think about you all the time, but I don't need the same. It's lonely where you are, come back down, and I won't tell them your name."