no one quite like rene

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The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.
– Seamus Heaney, Elegy

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she was bold.
and beautiful.
and sassy.
she was unapologetically herself.
she lived her life in full colour.
she had a loving heart, a loud laugh, a generous spirit.
she knew what she wanted, and who she was, and never questioned her right to have the best of everything.

she made me want to be my best, most courageous and authentic self.

she was my friend.
she is my friend.
her body is gone, but she lives on.

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I want to meet death
and shake the hand of my maker
covered in flesh decorated
with scars and ink
and the secret stories
that only they can tell.
I want her to look me up
and look me down and raise an eyebrow
when she realizes that I
have the sea in my veins
and that I have from the moment
of my birth.
That in all her years
of picking up those
that cannot pick themselves up again,
she has never met anyone
quite like me.
– Tyler Knott Gregson. Typewriter series #283