Two songs -- True now as they were then.

Alice and I were always breaking each other's hearts, throughout our entire lives. And now in her death, she has broken my heart once and for all.

I listened to this song, Always Breaking My Heart, over and over when I was in California in September for the one year anniversary of Alice's death. It's sung by Belinda Carlisle, one of my favorites. She makes heartbreak look glamorous, which it just isn't.

You can click on either of the arrows to play the songs.

Then I heard Carole King's song at MetFoods a couple of days ago, and it's stuck with me. Alice forever pleaded with me to move back to California, I was so far away from the family. She knew how to pull on my heartstrings, because the geographic distance between my birth family and me has been an issue for me, too. I get so sad when I think of her desire to be closer to me, and my insistence on staying so far away.

You could bring up my relationship with Sophie and its difficulties, I know. It's true that I can be in the same room with some members of my family and feel thousands of miles away. I've reconciled the geographic distance by saying that we can work on the closeness of our relationships without moving. Still, it's hard. Obviously.

In the end, Alice remains away. Yet close. I can't keep from remembering her in every way I can.

And now it's 2008

Alice didn't live to see 2008. This is a difficult one, the year I turn 37 and surpass Alice's age. How could I have known that this potential existed in my life?

What makes starting 2008 somewhat easier is the notion that I'm starting to know Alice more as someone who's dead than who's alive. It's a function of the passing of time.

My mom said, incredulously, "Alice is moving to the backburner. I can't believe it."

She yearns to dream of Alice, to feel closer to her and experience her, even unconsciously. I want the same thing, myself.

So here's to dreaming of Alice in 2008.

"I like the color of your car."

Even before Ryan wrote in the comments section of the previous post, sharing his memory of a surprise run-in and conversation with Alice, my mom was recently relating to Peter and me how Alice talked to people so very easily.

She recalled an afternoon when she and Alice were riding their bicycles in Cerritos, my mom naturally lagging behind.

At one point, Alice was way ahead, and stopped at the light for my mom to catch up. When my mom at last arrived, Alice was chatting with the passenger and driver of a car in the neighboring lane. My mom recounted that she seemed very comfortable engaging with these guys; she thought they were friends.

When they drove off, my mom asked if Alice knew them. She said she didn't. My mom wanted to know how it was that they started talking. Alice replied that she had commented "I like the color of your car."

How's that for an opening line? And who wouldn't respond to an attractive young woman on a bicycle complimenting his car? Alice's charm connected her to so many.