I crossed paths with this poem and I feel like this is how Tonia is thinking right now. I love and miss you Tonia. - Kristi
"Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room. Whatever we were to each other, we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the same easy way you always have. Laugh as we always have laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it always was. There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of your sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is past. Nothing has been lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before - only better. Infinitely happier. We will be one, together forever."
April 2, 1970 - March 27, 2008
Tonia with her Jeep
Tonia's Jeep
Tonia's Guitar
1 comment:
I just wanted to share with you my love for Tonia. Tonia and i became best friends in about 6th or 7th grade. I remember at 1st we were mortal enemies (I was deathly afraid of her}and she knew it! She would tease me and make fun of me and I thought she was so mean. One day out of the blue we were being nice towards each other and that is where our lifetime friendship began. As we grew we had so much fun and so many memories. We had MJ parties in 1984 (Michael Jackson) when the Thriller video came out, we waited all week for that night talking about nothing else. We thought he was soooo like hot!!! Her and I would travel with the wrestling team and take stats, actually she would because I was not so great at it. We would go to the games and look for some handsome boys. Always having fun. One time we went to the Manti pageant and met some return missionaries. Our parents actually let us go on a date with them! We were only sophomores. We went to the mountains and fixed them a picnic and told them that we actually cooked my pet cow mabel so that they could have a really nice
meal. Another memory was when we went on a double date to the Spaghetti Factory Tonia's date was a dear friend and a very funny guy. (Jan Karkowski from Germany} We were looking at our menu's getting ready to order and all of the sudden Jan started to jump and yell, his menu had caught on fire from the candle!!! We poured water on it and was all laughing so hard! One night when we were 15 (I don't know if she ever told her parents this} Tonia slept over at my house and we were sleeping outside in the tent. We got this idea that we would sneak out. I grew up across from the cemetary, so our idea was to sneak out and go to the cemetary walk through it and hit main sreet, from there we would wait for headlights to come up the street and then we would run, we ran because in 1985 usually the only lights on main were a cop. Well we would run to the street see the lights and then hide in the cemetary, after a few times of this finally the lights turned into the cemtary road and sure enough it was a cop! AAAHHHHH we both took off running of course strong, lean, athletic Tonia was ahead of me....so I followed her! She was just a going and the next thing I knew Tonia disappeared right before my eyes in the dark, before i knew it I was on top of her! In those days they only covered a grave with astro turf, well we did not see it and we landed right smack in the middle of it. We did not know how we were going to get out! We were scared, and laughing and crying at the same time. I did feel bad because she landed on her tailbone!
Eventually we did get out, but it was not very easy! I could write pages and pages of memories about my dear friend who I always looked at to be my BEST friend. When I was 12 and now when I am 37. Tonia was always so kind and thoughtful. Always asked me about my family or my health or my kids. She always worried if everything was alright. Since Tonia left us, I went through all my bags and boxes that have cards and letters in them. I went through and found all the cards and letters from her and bought a beautiful pink and yellow box and I call it my Tonia box. In every letter she talks about how wonderful Ryan was to her and how much she loved him. How happy she always was, how much she loved being a mother. She loved fall, and her flower garden, her horse, so many talks about going for a drive with her family to see the leaves changing. She loved to make her house smell of good food when they came home so they knew she loved them. All these years we lived so far away from each other. I always knew she was ill. I knew she struggled. She would tell me stories about what when on in her life, but when someone is not there on a daily basis to know exactly how good or bad something is you cannot know how it really is for that person. I wish I had been closer to help in her times of need. In the 2nd to the last phone conversation we had,Tonia told me in her own way that her time to go was near. I told her "ohh don't talk that way" I ignored it and chose to not believe it, thinking she would always be here. I wish now I would of taken that opportunity to tell her everything she met to me. Now I tell whoever reads this. I think we all have learned things from Tonia, and have become better for knowing her. I miss her so much. My mother gave to me as a gift a few weeks ago, a beautiful glass and silver frame that said memories last a lifetime...bestfriends are forever...in it mine and Tonia's last picture together taken on Thanksgiving. We are hugging each other and grinning ear to ear. I look at it everyday and remember all the good times. And I thank God for her, and her true friendship.
I love you Pepper,
Carolann (Riddle) Volberg
Post a Comment