Tomasina
Years and years back I received a letter in the mail.
It was one of those kidnap ransom letters...each letter cut from a magazine and glued to a piece of paper.
Except it was a love letter.
I thought about my brother Jeff...
...called him.
“I got one too!”
We got together and compared them. They were virtually identical.
“Don’t say anything,” Jeff said. “We don’t react and they’ll show themselves.”
Then the phone calls started.
Obviously I only had a phone in my apartment and I got a call from a girl...
...she pretended it was a wrong number but we talked.
Her calls to me went on for weeks.
Jeff was receiving the same calls.
We wondered what she looked like. There were planned meetings that never panned out. We couldn’t figure it out.
“It’s Tomasina,” Jeff said. “I found out.”
We laughed about it...
...she had catfished both of us before it was even a thing.
At the time we were playing softball with her brother Jason as well.
We’d found a family of friends.
Years later, my beautiful wife was in nursing school.
“I met someone who knows you. Tomasina says hello.”
We laughed about the letters and phone calls.
Kathy and Tomasina became friends and I had the good fortune of talking to her and seeing her a couple of times.
She was the same funny, brilliant girl who had called me under an alias.
“Tomasina passed away,” Kathy said with an early morning call on Wednesday.
“What?????”
It was an infection.
She got sick and didn’t get better.
“Are you f****ng kidding me?” Kathy said about 10 times.
Me too.
May she Rest In Peace.
Tomasina followed the Muslim faith. We talked about how she was treated every now and again.
That’s the shame of painting everyone with the same brush.
Kind, generous, brilliant and funny.
Damn.
It was one of those kidnap ransom letters...each letter cut from a magazine and glued to a piece of paper.
Except it was a love letter.
I thought about my brother Jeff...
...called him.
“I got one too!”
We got together and compared them. They were virtually identical.
“Don’t say anything,” Jeff said. “We don’t react and they’ll show themselves.”
Then the phone calls started.
Obviously I only had a phone in my apartment and I got a call from a girl...
...she pretended it was a wrong number but we talked.
Her calls to me went on for weeks.
Jeff was receiving the same calls.
We wondered what she looked like. There were planned meetings that never panned out. We couldn’t figure it out.
“It’s Tomasina,” Jeff said. “I found out.”
We laughed about it...
...she had catfished both of us before it was even a thing.
At the time we were playing softball with her brother Jason as well.
We’d found a family of friends.
Years later, my beautiful wife was in nursing school.
“I met someone who knows you. Tomasina says hello.”
We laughed about the letters and phone calls.
Kathy and Tomasina became friends and I had the good fortune of talking to her and seeing her a couple of times.
She was the same funny, brilliant girl who had called me under an alias.
“Tomasina passed away,” Kathy said with an early morning call on Wednesday.
“What?????”
It was an infection.
She got sick and didn’t get better.
“Are you f****ng kidding me?” Kathy said about 10 times.
Me too.
May she Rest In Peace.
Tomasina followed the Muslim faith. We talked about how she was treated every now and again.
That’s the shame of painting everyone with the same brush.
Kind, generous, brilliant and funny.
Damn.
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