Is there anything like when Colleen saw you and her face opened into this sincere million dollar smile, and you could feel how much she loved you? Like the sun came right out of her. And when Col listened to you talk about something that was bothering you it was like she was trying to hear your feelings in your words and she looked at you like she wanted to read your face so she could understand how you felt. She experienced everything so intensely.
Col was truly the tenderest of vittles, so open hearted. I remember when Snooper went missing the night before her wedding (was it right before?), calling his name out and searching in ditches with flashlights. Col loved that little dog. She was so worried. (Thank god we found him or the wedding may have had to have been postponed and it was the most fun wedding ever). Or the night she accidentally hit a rabbit on a dark road on the way to the Point and it was like the end of the world - she felt so bad for that damn rabbit. It took a while to convince her we shouldn’t go back for it.
When Col was excited or happy you knew it. She had lots of different laughs, including an outburst laugh (HA!), a giggly-conspiratorial-should-we-really-be-laughing-about-this-laugh (with a demure tuck of her chin). Even her voice -- so many modulations, really high or low or whispers or shouts (usually with a smack on your arm and a NO!) and all in the space of a 1 minute conversation. Or if you told her something really outrageous she would hit you and say no and walk away and walk back, “Are you Serious!” Col’s handwriting was epic. She was left handed but even for a lefty it was completely bonkers. Like it matched the cascade of her thoughts or something. It was all bubbly and catty-wompus.
Col was drop dead gorgeous but never believed it. The woman who did her hair on her wedding day said something like, “Colleen we could shave you bald and you would still look beautiful.” She looked like a princess bride and danced like a fiend that night. I remember lessons at Jack Greenen’s dance studio in high school but Col’s moves were all her. Unteachable. Unmatchable. They defied all dance-move naming conventions.
I wish we were dancing. Or getting ready to go dancing (with Emma again to SXSW!). Or that we were little kids playing Barbies in Col’s front yard under the big pine trees. Or laughing in the Nativity girls’ bathroom. Or ice-skating on Freemans Pond or at the Y. Col could do a sort of an axel jump, I think she taught herself? It was like a piston firing - an energy burst. Like when she kicked ass at whatever sport she happened to be playing on any given day. She would crush it. Or I wish we were on the dock while she lifeguarded, talking about whatever. Lying on some old beat-up towels. A warped paperback copy of one of her Tolkien books by her side. She would probably waitressing later that day at the Sword. One of us was probably heartbroken or in love.
I try and imagine Col now with the dogs -- all of them including Snooper, and the birds (Merlin on one shoulder and Mr. T on the other), and the cat, and probably that damn bunny. And she’s started a vet clinic in animal heaven and is getting ready to go dancing with everyone she loves that’s up there with her. I love you Col and miss you. I love you, too, McMahons and Dan, Jack and Emma. Thank you for sharing Colleen with all of us and surrounding her with love and care, her whole life.
