First I trolled all over the internet, digging away at remembered details, fretting that perhaps Brianne had married and I had no hope of finding her with her maiden name.
Failing there, I traversed the vasty wilderness of Facebook and LinkedIn, sending at least a dozen messages to strangers who might have been my Brianne, but weren’t.
Next, I called my old employer, using a wee bit of subterfuge, looking for Brianne. Alas, they only keep records the seven years the law requires. Double alas, the person in Human Resources wasn’t employed there in 2003 when I worked there alongside Brianne.
Not to be thwarted, when the prevailing feeling in the poll was that I hadn’t tried hard enough, I tried harder, and spent a little money. I paid to pull background information on likely prospects. One made my hopes soar. Her age was right, born in 1977. Her middle name was Brianne, which rang a bell for me. I seemed to remember that, like me, Brianne used her middle name instead of her first for many things. Her address for the period I knew Briann matched my memory of the neighborhood in Temple Terrace, Florida. More importantly, there was an address history going back to the 1990s. There, I was sure, I would find her family, and through her family, I would find her.
I did. After a fashion.
Before I got on the phone and started calling strangers, I did a search of her name and her childhood hometown. What I found was heartbreaking to say the least. It explains why she just didn’t seem to exist on the internet. It explains why we “lost touch” in late 2004.
Now I know how to spell her name. What I still have to figure out is how to word the dedication. If this were a story in a book, I would throw it against the wall in anger and rail against the author. Truth being a bit crueler and more pragmatic than fiction, I’ll try to make it matter that the book she liked enough to keep a printout of will be going to press with her name in it. Thanks to Brianne it has a happy ending. She said it had to. She said it wasn’t fair if Bernie and Meda didn’t get a happy ending. She was right.
Oh, man. That’s so sad. 😦
I think it will matter, Bryn. I’m sorry your search turned out this way.
Right now I’m wishing I hadn’t tried harder. That’ll pass I suppose, but right now I wish I’d gone on thinking she was out there living her life, and that someday, she might see my book and think, “That dummy. She misspelled my name.”
Oh, Bryn, how sad. That is absolutely heartbreaking. 😦
Perhaps a simple ‘in memory of’ ?
My only difficulty is my dedication is to be to 2 people–the other still living. Just trying to figure out how to word it.
Oh my word. How terrible. It’s a heartbreaking story – but somehow honorable to have cared enough to search her out. It gives her passing a certain dignity, if not compassion. Perhaps there’s a kind of comfort to have someone search for you and to not be forgotten.
I hope that’s true, that I can redeem this somehow by not having forgotten how she helped me, by marking that friendship.
this is so tragic. =(((
big hugs to you!!
Thanks, Cindy. It’s so sad I can’t even understand it yet.
I’m so sorry, Bryn. That’s a cruel, impersonal way to find out that you’ve lost someone.
You’d think I would be used to it, since my family never notifies the black sheep of such things. With a friend, it seems different, because I really did think we just drifted apart. Now, knowing her life was cut so short seems impossibly cruel.
Oh no, I’m so sorry. How terribly sad. I wish you hadn’t looked any further too now… I wish we hadn’t answered your poll.. What a horrible accident.
Among the saddest things I’ve encountered in a long time.
Wow, how sad. 😦
You could do something simple, such as “Dedicated to Mary Jones who […] and in memory of Brianne May who […].”
Or something like that.
Or perhaps it’s all in the layout. I wanted to do:
For my first readers:
Sheila W.
Brianne May (I wish you were here to see it!)
I am so sorry. That’s utterly tragic. No wonder you feel like you’ve been sandbagged.
I want to drink and drink and drink. But it’s not on my diet.
So she was a hero. She tried to save her mother.
So sad, Bryn. I know it is hard and I can understand why you wish you hadn’t looked but…I’m kind of glad you found her.
I think perhaps I’m still just in the raw moment of imagining the event, what it must have been like for her, for both of them.
No words. I’m sorry you had to lose her again.
There’s no words to tell you how sorry I am. *hugs*
Oh no. I’m so sorry. *hugs*
However, it’s really nice that you made the effort to search for her just to spell her name correctly – even that meant stumbling upon bad news in the hardest way. You did the right thing – and they’re always the hardest to do.
Thanks for the kind words, my people. I think I’m still a little stunned and feeling like I wish there were some way to share this with her poor family, to let them know she’s remembered. I’m just not sure what that would be, and I can’t really find anyone else from the family. I guess that means, I just go ahead with my original intent.