If I could somehow take back something I did to someone, what would it be? Wow, talk about a loaded question. Two things come to mind rather quickly, holding their hands up saying "oh oh oh pick me" so I suppose I'll focus my attention there,

They both occured in the same year, coincidentally. The year was 2001 and the world had not yet got involved yet.

It was January of 2001 and my brother, Jeffrey, whom I've talked about non-stop on my blog so you know who he is. He started calling me at all hours non-stop. In hindsight, as it always seems to be where I do my most logical thinking, he was alone and needed someone. I should have felt so priviliged to be there for someone so incredible, but it felt more like a nuisance of a little brother taking up my precious selfish time. He needed me then, but life was so narrow and crowded at the time. Life had overwhelmed me into agoraphobic proportion and while I couldn't call any of my actions sane at the time, I certainly never expected someone would truly need me. Alas, he did. The simple act of pressing ignore on his incoming call shouldn't be so prominent, and under usual circumstances I suppose those moments would be forgotten. However, the very last call of his life - or at least on his cell phone bill - was to me and I disctinctly remember ignoring it. I thought, "I'll call him back" the first time it rang. By the second, I didn't hesitate to press ignore as I walked out my door for class. The third and final call of his life I rolled my eyes, annoyed. If I could take back that day, I would have skipped my class and answered his call and talked to him for the rest of his life.

Fast Forward to 9/11 and beyond...the year of hell was nearly over. There was a friend, someone I had gotten to know more intimately than anyone will ever know. She was special and to this day the impact she had upon my life is unforgettable. She was there for me when I didn't know who I was and pretending who I ought to be tested her very being. Nonetheless, her love never waivered and brought forth the unconditional. Yet, I was unformed and unresolved in life. I could have been true to my heart, but such things were foreign and compassion had not yet knocked at my numbly closed door. I should have wished her a happy birthday. I could have told her I loved her, truly I did. She should have known I felt the same, but I abandoned her just as easy as I abandoned my brother that year in 2001. I guess she may never know how she taught me to breathe when the entire world disappeared.

I may change the choices I made, but the regret I only feel through hoping they both know how instrumental they both were in teaching me the fundamental of love - compassion.

I'm not sure why my mind puts my mom there unless it somehow thinks life will cut my life shorter than hers, or I'm afraid of her and death in the same sentence at all. Regardless, for the sake of this morbid question and for plain good storytelling let's assume she is there. Assuming my body arrived safely in Oklahoma (pun intended) and if they do carry out my final wishes for cremation, I would probably laugh (can a fly laugh?) at the sight of these people - family, friends from all walks of life, business associates, and people that hate me there just to make sure I actually did die - sitting there in emotional trance staring at this silly little urn. I'm not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but my mother is so I will stress that my little beady fly eyes better not see a single pew. The officiant (who better not be a pastor of any sort) reads off Buddhist passage from Thich Nhat Hanh on death and once he finishes the music starts. I spend a lot of time floating around in my mind and visiting people that have passed through, experiences that affixed itself to my mental postcards, and seeing what I may have missed the first time around, so since my journey is over I hope that someone else begins to float.

Sitting there as my soundtrack begins with Oasis' "Stop Crying Your Heart Out", Carolyn comments on the selection and then mentions how she'll miss Rhoda (me) so I land on her shoulder and buzz "I'm the Mary."

A few of the Antlers guys including my ex-step father David, true to discriminatory form, mention what a loss it was (of course they aren't referring to my actual death but my sexuality).

After the first song, the Buddhist-slanting officiant opens the floor for sharing. Stormi steps up first and tells stories that make people laugh because that is who I used to be. She talks about us being so broke when we lived together that we ate bologna sandwiches every day. How we drove the 3-hour stretch from Stillwater to home penniless and with the gas light flashing for 80% of it (you would be surprised at how many times it will come on before your car sputters at all), and when we were forced to get gas we filled it up and sped out of the gas station without paying. See, in New Jersey that is impossible because it's never self-serve. She'll then mention how it unleashed a crookedness in us we never knew we had and lead us into Pizza Hut and we fed and ran, fast, hopped in our car with the stolen gas and went home.

My friend Lance would read a poem because he told me there was too much poetry in my soul to get my MBA. I love poetry, and I hope there are several more that read some prose at my permanent going away party.

More music, Khalil Gibran reading, and at the end a reference to my favorite author - Milan Kundera - when the officiant says "Please join me on Jeffrey's mountain where Alisa will be thrown to the winds - the last symbol of eternal lightness."

It's there that all this comes out: Alisa was...fearless, creative, quirky, hard to comfort, funny, thought she was witty but she wasn't, forgiving and perhaps too forgiving, strong, a wordsmith, a good communicator of the abstract, batshit crazy, not shy, loyal, clumsy, the most outgoing introvert, what you see is what you get, moody, good at keeping secrets but never having any, silly, fascinating to rapidly boring, and then someone will say what a great playlist.