T-Bone - 4/8/1960-10/28/2002

A few years ago I wrote about my sweet friend T-Bone, the laughs we had, and how her illness caused her to withdraw from the world. Her mother told me they were just making her comfortable during her time she had left, the last time I called T-Bone's home. But I never even knew when she died.

It's always bothered me. Immensely.

I've periodically tried to do searches on her name on line to learn more, but have never really had any luck - Until the other day, when I ran across a very interesting site. Find A Grave is a huge database of millions of gravesites all over the United States and internationally. A collective project of both founder and thousands of contributors, visitors to the site can look up information on those who have passed. Of course the success of finding anyone depends on whether someone had taken the time and effort to enter them prior to your search, but with so many already banked there, your chances are fair.

I found T-Bone. She had been entered by a family friend, who had been gracious enough to also include her obituary and a photograph of her headstone. As I would have expected, her stone is adorned with a lovely angel - she loved angels. More importantly, I finally knew when she'd left us. I left a note in the guestbook, telling her I missed her. Silly sounding, I know, but somehow I felt much better after doing so.

I've never cosidered myself one for "closure" in the matters of death. When someone I love dies, the last thing I want to do is go to a funeral. I do NOT want my last memory of my loved one to be of them gray and cold and laid out in a box. But I do have a way of remembering the friends I've lost on their birthdays and the days they have died. It's my way of paying them tribute, if only in my heart. Not knowing when T-Bone passed away has always troubled me. My experience with finding her in that grave database and in finally knowing the date she passed, made me realize that perhaps I do have the need for "closure". Just in a different way than someone else would.

It's good to finally know. Rest in peace, my dear friend.

(BTW, if you're a perpetual browser like me, Find A Grave also has thousands of famous people's graves and biographies in its database. Have fun!)