Dear Vanessa

Back in 1997 I applied for an internship at WPLJ radio station in NY city. It was my first step toward working in radio with hopes of becoming a radio personality.  At the time, I wasn’t actually qualified for an internship.  I was in my freshman year of college at a local community college and somehow, I was hired for internship.  

While I was there, I worked alongside other interns one in particular I would become friends with.  Vanessa was a few years older than me and I confided in her that I wasn’t actually getting any college credit for this internship.  I was simply doing it for work experience.   If anyone found out, I probably would have been let go, but then again I doubt anyone even check I was in school at all.

Over the next year Vanessa and I would gather up all the audio equipment, load it into the WPLJ promotions van and drive on the NJ turnpike or LIE to set up for a live promotion.  We handed out bumper stickers, tickets and CD’s.  Vanessa had gone to school for audio engineering, where I had no idea how to set up any of the speaker and audio equipment.  Over that year, she became my mentor and friend, showing me “the way”.  Still to this day, my greatest job was the one I never got paid for.

One afternoon, heading home from an event we parked the car near Penn station and made our way through he hustle and bustle of folks trekking through the rush-hour madness.  I was heading towards a staircase, when a frail old woman asked if I could lead her up the stairs as she followed behind.  Without hesitation, I lead the pack, the woman between myself and Vanessa like a short conga line.  

As I pushed my way up the stairs a big burly guy elbowed me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me, as he pushed the pack of people down the stairs. Without a wink, I turned around and clocked him in the back of the head.  I didn’t plan on doing such a thing, and then I heard a guy behind him said “Man are you going to let her do that to you?”  My response was simple: “You better shut up before I do it to you.”  I could hear the burly laughter from the rear and knew it could only be Vanessa.  Her laugh was a distinct one.   For the next year, she would tell that story to everyone, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. I thought it was the funniest story to hear told about me, I was only 5’3, 18 years old.  

Somehow thought the years, we lost touch, the last time I saw her was on a drinking binge in marine park Brooklyn, she sent me home in a cab bc I was too drunk to take the train.  

I thought of my friend Vanessa quite often. How was her Australian grandmother she loved and spoke of so often?  I wondered if she was still living in Marine Park Brooklyn, did she still in love with Mike Piazza of the Mets?  How was her cousin Paulie?

Over the past year, I began my search on MySpace, Google, and Facebook to somehow reconnect with Vanessa always coming up short.  Until one afternoon, I found my old supervisor from WPLJ radio station on Facebook.  She and Vanessa too were very close as Vanessa after her graduation was hired fulltime by the station as a Promotions director.  I asked in an email if she knew how to get a hold of Vanessa as I have been looking for her for almost 10 years and she was reluctant to say that Vanessa passed away on Christmas Eve a few years ago in her sleep.  

My search had finally ended with an answer I didn’t want to hear. The feeling in my stomach felt exactly how it felt that day when that man in Penn station had elbowed me.  I was without air.

My first up close and personal experience with death happened when I was 24 years and my mother passed away in her sleep during an afternoon nap.  It never gets any easier, and still my heart aches for people that I have lost.  Sometimes, it’s easier for me to stay disconnected from the world than to love and have relationships with the fear it will be lost.  We don’t last forever, as the world doesn’t really belong to us. 

I still have my Johnny Ray CD that Vanessa and I would listen to at the station.  I can still hear her laugh and it will forever make me smile.     

This is Vanessa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VzDpaWdxzk