IG, Sep 21, 2007 at 11:58 PM
Ever since I heard the news this afternoon, I've been thinking about my last IM chat with Marque. It was at the beginning of September. She pinged me at work. She said she had had a stroke or something very much like it, induced by one of the drugs her doc had prescribed to manage her BP (at too high of a dosage, as it turns out). She was explaining why she had been silent so long. First pneumonia, then the "stroke," and then full-blown psychosis. It sounded like a pretty horrific time. She said she'd finally come out of it, but that one finger on one hand was still shaking, even as we were chatting. She sounded tired, but okay, philosophical. I'd almost say at peace, if you can tell something like that over IM. She said Steve had been great through it all, that he had really been there when she needed him. He had saved her.
I love this picture of Marque cuddling in bed with her daughter. It's a soft, sweet side of Marque that we rarely saw on Vox. Oh, she didn't hide it, it was there, but it was overshadowed, maybe, by other parts of Marque--the darker, more troubled, more dramatic parts.
This tagline is my favorite one from Marque's Vox. She rotated a few of them, but for me this one really nailed what she was about. “Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ... WOW! What a ride!”
The circumstances of her accident aside, I've always loved this tagline for Marque. It's so authentically her. She's the only person I've ever known who really lived this way. Good and bad, she lived it all fully and she shared it completely, without reservation. She was so open.
I was thinking, driving home from work today, that I wish someone on Vox would host some kind of memorial service for Marque. Maybe that's stupid, considering everything that happened with her here... But it can't be right to say nothing. Whether we liked her or not, Marque was an important part of this community. She had a unique voice and an energy that demanded attention. Marque made us think (often about things we would have preferred to ignore) and she made us understand ourselves better simply by being who she was. I think she held up a mirror to the Vox community. I think many of us saw things in her that we didn't necessarily want to admit were part of us. People can react very strongly to that sort of thing, sometimes.
But here's what I admired most about Marque. In the months I knew her on Vox, I kept seeing her get knocked down by one thing or another--by her own mistakes or the betrayals of others--but every time, every single time, she'd eventually sit up, get back on her feet, dust herself off, and start over. She made plenty of mistakes, but you just knew that giving up was never going to be one of them. Her appetite for life was enormous.
Marque is the first Vox friend I've lost. Well, she's the first friend I've ever lost, period. Where is the frame of reference for this? How do I honor her spirit, or mark her passing? Her family has no idea who I am. They probably have no idea just how many of us out here feel we knew Marque, and cared about her. How strange this world of Internet friendships can be.
In the comments section:
I read many of Marque's posts openmouthed in disbelief that she could be so open and frank and vulnerable with a bunch of strangers. But I really don't think she knew any other way to be. It scared me to death, for her. Most of the time I knew her I was worried about what kind of trouble she'd get into next. It was exhausting, but it also made me question my own junk. She made me want to try to do things differently, take chances and connect with people more.... She had the warmest heart and she had balls of steel. She was fierce.
Over the months I've written comments on her various blogs that were more heartfelt and more thoughtful than most of the posts I've written on my own. She drew me out and made me want to say what I really thought and felt about things that were important to me. That doesn't come easy.
