This Is Sherri Moore

This is Sherri Moore.

I am finishing this blog post very late but I had started this about a year ago but life had simply gotten in the way and I never had a proper chance to come back to it and actually finish this piece. Anyway. 

I had simply forgotten about her until about a year ago but, thanks to an app I use called Timehop, I was reminded of her and decided to see what she was up to. It was around 1AM, I remember, and I got the answer I was looking for then learned why she had been so silent lately. She had passed away in March of 2015. One year and four months ago. And I can’t help but feel immense heartbreak for her and intense self-guilt because I had simply forgotten about someone, at the time, for four months, not even knowing she had passed on.

I was laying in bed, unable to sleep so I was mindlessly scrolling about in various apps on my phone. Opened up my social networking folder of apps and checked out Timehop. Timehop is an app that digs through your history on social media and shows what you posted on the day you check it, only just a year prior, or two years prior, or further back in your life. It showed me something I had retweeted of hers. She had somehow come across a bulldog puppy and trying to find a home for him. I immediately thought, “Hey, I haven’t seen anything from her in a while on Twitter,” and didn’t think much more than that while I worked my way over to my Twitter app to see what she has been up to. Although, a feeling also hit me at the same time but I tend to ignore those more dire feelings when they initially hit. I saw the last tweet from her Twitter account:

“If you haven’t hears [sic], Sherri has passed away in her sleep on March 14 at 9:30 pm. She is finally at peace“

My heart sank in immediate sadness and grief for her. A whirlwind of emotions soon hit me and the emotional storm didn’t calm down until a few days later.

Okay, let me back up a bit and give some details that may clarify this a bit more.

When I was younger, I went to Skyview Middle School with a girl named Laura. We weren’t really friends at this point as she was more of a classmate that I barely talked to or acknowledged and that usually only happened during a group project. We continued on into Sand Creek High School and I got to know her a bit better and we became friends. Not close or great friends, but just simple “Hello!” in the hallway type of friends. Laura was always really nice to me even though we had completely different sets of friends, or cliques, in high school. I still can’t remember the exact date but I do know it was either immediately before graduation or immediately after graduation, I received news that Laura had passed away due to a drug overdose. I still, to this day, don’t even know if that’s exactly what happened but the narrative surrounding her passing never seemed to change since then. Sherri was Laura’s mom.

Years later, I would come to find Twitter and, after a bit more time, I got really engaged with the local scene on Twitter as you’ll know from my previous blog post on this very topic. I eventually came across Sherri and immediately messaged her. We had several conversations in that time and it was cool to interact with someone like her. She seemed to have such a sharp wit and funny sense of humor! But, a few things always seemed to stick out.

She was lonely and didn’t have much help available around her. She talked a lot about about how she needed work done around the house, or that her car had broken down again, that she really needed someone to come hang out with her because she felt alone, and that no one would give her a listening ear. I don’t know enough about her own family to comment on that situation but my heart always broke every time I saw a tweet from her that was clearly made during distress and I was especially bothered because there never seemed to be anyone available to help her out. Simply, she was a lonely little ol’ lady that had no one around her. To this day, that whole situation still breaks my fucking heart.

So, I started asking around and talking to my own friends about maybe starting some kind of fundraiser for her. Or what about doing a surprise Thanksgiving dinner for her in 2014? Maybe even just get her a bunch of gift cards? I even thought about just offering her rides to and from any places she needed to get to.

But, life got in the way.

I allowed life to get in the way. In retrospect, I realize I couldn’t predict this sort of outcome but, damn, I wish I would’ve kept her in the forefront of my mind just a little longer. I had a million other things to keep me occupied. These were her last series of tweets before she passed away.

And this all absolutely fucking shatters my heart.

The whole point of this post is to tell you to not make the same mistake I did. If you see someone in need like this, do what you can to help them. Take a moment and stop to think about how you can take a tiny portion of your free time to make someone else’s life better. I will always live with this guilt that I never followed through on my plans to have a surprise special dinner for her or to do yard work for her or to give her a ride to her doctor’s place or to provide her a listening ear for her to vent and rant.

Or to just be a reminder that she is loved.

I’m not sure of what else to say but it’s been a year since I found out she passed away and a part of her existence is still very much alive within my mind. I plan to use that as a motivation and, again, reminder, to be aware of those in need around me and to make sure I carve out a little time to fulfill whatever need they have. Because, if there’s anything I know for sure, it is so important to feel loved and to love others. Regardless. No excuses. No one should have to die feeling alone and unloved. Let’s do what we can to make sure this doesn’t happen with the best of our abilities.

So, to Sherri Moore, you were and are loved. You experienced major tragedies during your life but please know your memory will motivate me to help others when I can and be a constant reminder to not allow frivolous life stuff to get on the way anymore.

Thank you for this impact you had on my life.

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