Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone. Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.
The name’s not right, but it was close enough to keep that lyric repeating in my brain as I slipped a sweater into the bag of stuff going to the Ladies of Charity. Someone will be in the market for a good deal on a never-worn, white cashmere pullover, size small, even during this heat wave. Won’t they?
It was to have been a Christmas gift, but she wasn’t able to come home last December, so I’d been saving it for the next time I saw her. Now, that will never happen, and I don’t want to look at that sweater ever again.
Dianne
She was kind and generous and lovely, but if it hadn’t been for bad luck, she would have had no luck at all.
She didn’t win the parent lottery, but was raised primarily by a kind and loving grandmother who was killed in a head-on collision when Dianne was 16. This launched her into a string of difficult relationships complicated by drugs and alcohol, but she was smart and diligent and somehow managed to build a decent work record of restaurant and clerical jobs.
For several years, she was my mother’s caregiver. Mama had advanced dementia when Dianne moved into the big old house in the country and made it shine again. She revived Mama’s beautiful flowerbeds, planted a huge kitchen garden and made the best fried okra I’ve ever eaten. She loved on her dogs and talked about going to nursing school.
But she caught another DUI (there were extenuating circumstances that I won’t belabor here), and spent 90 days in the county detention center, racking up a sizeable debt. I was stunned when an automated voice informed me that I’d be billed $14 if I accepted the collect phone call from an inmate. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. I already knew that commissary fees were outrageous – 500 percent markups on candy bars and T-shirts and snack food.
Prisoners (let’s call them what they are) are a jailhouse profit center and we bleed them dry, even though most of them are indigent. This should shame us, but we pretend not to know about it.
I was infuriated by these conditions, but Dianne – ever the stoic – seldom complained. She did her time and her rehab, came back to Mama’s house and made things bloom again.
Eventually, Mama’s condition forced us to admit her into assisted living. We sold the house and Dianne married rather suddenly and moved to Kentucky with her crazy little dog, hoping for a fresh start. At first, life seemed good. She got a job waiting tables and was soon promoted to assistant manager. She got a driver’s license and a car, something she couldn’t do here because she couldn’t pay her fees and court costs, the biggest chunk of which was the $45 a day bill for her 90-day stay at the Roger D. Wilson Detention Center. She came home a couple of times for weekend visits and visited Mama each time she was in town. She gave her a manicure the last time she saw her.
But things went south in Kentucky. The marriage didn’t last and the pandemic wiped out the restaurant industry.
She got a job working nights in a window factory and supplemented her income by doing yard work in her neighborhood, but still couldn’t make ends meet. She started seeing a therapist, who prescribed antidepressants, which made her sick. She wanted to come home, but still couldn’t pay the debt she owed Knox County and couldn’t get her Tennessee driver’s license reinstated. She started talking about Florida, where some of her relatives lived. I encouraged her to get out of there, and with the help of a lawyer friend who’d represented her before and liked her a lot, started working on a plan to help her come back to Knoxville. We were waiting to tell her soon as we firmed things up.
The last time I heard from her was a May 9 text message:
“Hey Betty, this isn’t an emergency right this moment. Would I be able to borrow about $30? I need to get food and gas in my car. I’m actually looking into moving very soon I’ll give you the details once I get it all figured out. It won’t be Florida or anything but probably a much better situation possibly back up to Washington or even somewhere else.”
She didn’t tell me that her dog, the difficult, traumatized dog she picked out at the shelter because he’d been abused as a puppy, the dog who loved only her and was her only companion, had gotten loose and run away a couple of weeks earlier.
Nor did she tell me that Knox County had turned her case over to a collection agency in April, or that her court cost debt had been jacked up to $7,097.
She died alone, early in the morning on May 12. Her landlord found her body later that day. She was 33.
I found very little online marking her passing except this post from a co-worker at the window factory:
“When I got to work tonight we all got some heartbreaking news. Unfortunately one of our coworkers/ one of my very few friends I have has passed away. Dianne idk why or how but I hope you know I will be keeping you in my thoughts and prayers. You were so down to earth and had such a sweet soul it’s so hard to believe that someone could be gone just like that. We started Pella together and I may not have known you very long but it felt like we had known each other for yrs. You will be missed dearly and may the lord rest your soul. If anyone has any info on visitation or funeral arrangements for her I would love to pay my respects.”
The medical examiner said it was an accidental overdose of prescribed medication.
Betty Bean writes a Thursday opinion column for KnoxTNToday.com.