Goodbye Teresa...

*

I got home from my writing group last night and I got on my laptop to post my daily picture and write a blog post. After that was done, I checked Facebook as I'm wont to do from time to time. And that's when I saw this picture. I had to read the text accompanying it several times to make sure I what I thought I read I had actually read.

The post was a memorial to a friend. Teresa passed away.

Around the late 1980s my friends and I used to hang out a lot. Since none of us were married, we'd see shows, go out to eat, but what I remember the most was just shooting the bull. Those times of us sitting around and talking were the best.

One of those times I remember distinctly. We were hanging out with a friend we grew up with, but who moved while in high school. She had with her a friend she knew after moving, and I remember her friend being one of the funniest people I ever met. She was flat-out hilarious.

In the decades since that night I had forgotten her name, but I never forgot her infectious laugh or that this funny gal was an extra in the original Footloose movie. If you're familiar with Footloose, then you'll remember the girl. Her date was the nose picker. Yes, that's her.

A few years back I did a show, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you're know this show (and if you live in Utah, you pretty much do...), you know that the show requires a lot of men. I was cast and so was a teenager, Zach--at least, I think he was still a teenager. If not, he had just turned twenty. Doing a show you get to know your cast members very well. Zach was just a great kid, always positive--someone who was trying to figure things out as you do when you transition from child to adult.

That show ended and last year I was asked to be in another show. Zach was in this one as well, but instead of being in the same show, Zach and I were counterparts, so we didn't see each other very ofter once the show began. We did "friend" each other on Facebook and that's when I found out Zach's mom was the same gal who had us all splitting our sides with laughter all those years ago.

Even though I didn't know Teresa as well as those who have offered condolences and words of comfort to Zach and his family, I want to add my voice to theirs. I know somewhere Teresa is making a lot of people laugh.

* Photo taken from the Facebook page of Kelsey Hadzima