Re: The Reunion Special
Letter One.
Rachael,
I don't know if you get Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens recaps over the people we love when we die. I like to think we do. Sometimes it's just safer to invest in Lisa Barlow's Baby Gorgeous drama to forget your own.
It's like we were always filming these internal "talking head" interviews in the vacuum of motherhood, secretly trying to diagnose every Bravolebrity with "his mama never told him no"-itis while avoiding our own plot twists.
You were the one who finally convinced me to start with Salt Lake City and I never looked back. I still remember texting you my thoughts about the series and our running commentary on how we’d handle Baby Gorgeous and Seth Marks living and working in Hattiesburg for a time.
Analyzing the housewives reminds me so much of you, Rach. You were going to be a counselor, which was just perfect. We were always typing people and diagnosing reality TV stars over Diet Coke at 8 in the morning. You would have been a legend in the field.
You counseled me more times than I can count, helping me see my traits as a gift rather than a burden—you were the ultimate hype woman in my "Real Housewives" cast. I bought us both Real Housewives of Hattiesburg stickers. It was the two of us that were the stars of RHoHburg. (Can we make that a thing?)
And that brings me back to the Andy Cohen of it all. Do you see what nonsense this world is since you've been gone? Do you sit there with a heavenly Diet Coke watching the boys, or Ben, or Bobbi Jo & Co.? With your parents? Do you see me struggling to make it through the days without being gut punched by grief?
I've felt you since you left: in the air-conditioned palace of Vizcaya when the rest of Miami was a sweltering jungle (and we Farrises were owning being too White for tropical heat). I thought of you thanking God for the AC while looking at a mansion that gave major Jay Gatsby vibes.
I would have wanted your rant on how a Gatsby retelling is exactly the direction I'd spin it, especially since I once rented the Hattiesburg Saenger for bridal portraits and made Art Deco my entire personality for a month. Having taught The Great Gatsby so much was finally melting my brain.
We didn't know each other then, back in 2016, when Brad and I got married. I think you were just hovering in the wings, waiting to re-emerge into my world, restored and ready to be the best friend I could ever ask for.
It's weird to look back at the "production" of my life, like the back of my 2025 cross-stitch phase. The front looked decent—novice skill set, sure, but passable. You would have called it "rustically charming" because you always gushed over effort. dWe eldest daughters, we "indoor cats," we're just doing our best to make life whimsical and fun for our boys while pointing them toward Christ. To teach ourselves we are God's beloved children.
You were the best example of that patience. You saw through my ramblings—which we eventually learned were actually ADHD and not just "burnt-out gifted kid" matrescence—way back in 2018. I'm still not used to being so seen by a friend who earnestly prayed for me, especially when I lost my Grandmother in March.
Rachael, you brought me coffee and sat on my couch as I detailed Nanny's decline and her last exhale. Thursday was the call to Brad and text to you to share that she was gone, and Friday morning you were there, crying with me. Teaching me about grief just a few months before you were taken from me, too.
I love that our friendship was never prefaced. We just spoke openly, seeing beauty in one another even while trying to get Joshie or Charlie to put shoes on in a McDonald's playplace while the other kids melted down. We were quick to tell one another our victories, and how proud we were of one another in those moments.
You were the queen of making connections, whether it was a book recommendation or a writing group at TBONES. And I'm so glad I had a friend that saw the way I connected things, and in fact, treasured the way I connected the dots between events in my life, in my novels, in my understanding of God.
It feels very RUDE of God to put such a massive plot twist in my story, but I realize now how big of a deal it was to get an ADHD diagnosis at 37. I also realize He gave me a friend to walk through it.
You were my biggest cheerleader. I miss my hype woman, but I think you're part of "production" now, always in my heart and your laugh in my ears. And I hear your running commentary in little bits and pieces in the world around me.
The grief is both the wound and the balm. It's like an NJ Housewives reunion—no matter how you try, you'll never be fully whole again, like someone's sworn on someone's grandma and they'll never forgive them. Or Andy Cohen when Teresa Giudice pushed him out of the way to get to Danielle Staub at Season Two’s Reunion.
That's the surprised feeling I get. Andy's knocked off balance by an irate NJ housewife is the same feeling I experience when I remember that I lost years of a future with you, and it feels like embers in a dying flame. There was so much warmth from the hearth that the stone still aches with the heat. It's still warm to the touch, leaving me staring at the ashes, knowing the fire is gone but the warmth remains.
I hope the metaphor isn't too dramatic, and too left field from the Bravo theme, but you know I'm wordy and geeky. You were at the "Ultra Mega Magic" level of friendship with me, so you know the earnestness is there with bells on.
I think you know I still keep it in the present tense. I don't want to reduce my best friend to a footnote when you were a Lead Character. And maybe this is how you live on—recollecting what God teaches me through trials and the ups and downs of life. Suffering feels accurate some days, like the pain of an induction without an epidural.
You helped me realize what it looks like to be quirky, open, and kind. We complained over Diet Cokes before making a plan to raise our "wildlife" boys together.
I'm just doing the hard part now by writing to you, letting you help me hone my craft through these "voice notes" in my head. Doing the thing that you'd be encouraging me to do. Write my way through it.
And best of all—I've established no deadlines or rules. Just a place to chat with my BFF, Rachael.
At least until the reunion special.
Share
&
Follow
Share & Follow
For any inquiries, please contact:
Email: amandag@kindredforkeeps.com
