For Danielle, the Love of My Life

Suddenly —
You were gone
From all the lives
You left your mark upon.

Rush: “Afterimage”

We first met at the Sterling Fair in the late 1980s as kids. She was a few years older than me and I was just a toddler. We were supposed to be looking at the animals from nearby farms: chickens, bulls, pigs, etc. but I was more interested in her ice cream cone. It was a large soft-serve vanilla covered in a rainbow of jimmies that I just craved. That was the first time I ever encountered the girl who would become my best friend, the love of my life, my soulmate.

Her name is Danielle. We talked throughout the holiday weekend about our families, when I was going to get my increasingly green pool ready so that she could come over and jump in, and played several rounds of phone games through text like “Would You Rather…” and other such nonsense to burn off some stress. Everything had been fine.

Tuesday evening came and her mother called my family frantically asking if we had heard from her, and since we all had, it wasn’t much of a worry. I still felt the anxiety. I had been hit with a massive panic attack the night before and it became worse with that call. The next day, on the 8th of July, we called for a wellness check and learned that Danielle had passed away a night or two before.

There is much I have to say about this, and I hope that you please stay and read everything first before racing to the comments or emailing me your condolences.

She was found unresponsive in her apartment by a firefighter after we had called for the check. There is very little information I can share about what may or may not have happened but all I can legally say is that there is an ongoing investigation. This article is also about her, not what happened to her. The world is a much worse place today without this incredibly beautiful, talented person full of love for so many.

I have become a shell of myself since learning this news and I have been largely running on autopilot doing menial chores while I stay with my parents in the aftermath. Daily Dilophosaurus is over. I have no idea when or if I am going to start recording or taking photographs again. If I do practice my instruments it’s a chore, not a passion. I haven’t been able to write a thing, and even this update has been heavily delayed because I just can’t get the strength to talk about it. I wake up crying, and I fall asleep cuddling a Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt that she had left at my house a few Super Bowls ago.

Just this past May, Dani had stayed with me after my father had fallen and was hospitalized for a month. We slept together, cuddling each other and her little red Care Bear. We cooked and cleaned the house as a team. She’d be off at work during the day, and then we’d be goofing around at night. We’d look at houses in Western Massachusetts and the Berkshires on Zillow, trying to find our dream home once every little thing had been worked out. She asked me point blank when we were going to get married, and I gave her a little wink and a nudge that she’d have to wait for her birthday in November to find out. I had a topaz engagement ring hidden away that had belonged to my great-grandmother. They shared a birthday and I wanted to surprise her with it then.

Danielle was an incredible flautist and, like many players, doubled on the piccolo. She told me that she had always wanted to add the alto and bass flutes to her repertoire. She would disagree with me, but I say that she was a gifted vocalist as well. She had thought about music school but was more than happy studying Communications Media at Fitchburg State, and even had dabbled with starting her own non-profit a few years ago to help children in need.

If it were not for music we would never have been reunited in college. We met very early on in my university years when she joined the jazz band. I also rewrote her parts as she was doubling the alto sax, which is in a different key than her instrument. We bonded immediately and were inseparable in my later college years. When she moved back to Pennsylvania unexpectedly I was heartbroken, but we talked by email and phone every day.

After graduating myself I learned that she was pregnant from a then boyfriend and, knowing in my gut that she was in trouble, launched what I still call a rescue mission with our friends to save her and her baby. By the end of the summer of 2010 he was gone and she and her newborn were both thriving.

She was a great mother who sacrificed everything for her child. She took terrible jobs with horrible conditions to make ends meet, both in Pennsylvania and here in Massachusetts after she moved back to be near myself and my family. She battled the Department of Children and Families over custody issues with the ex’s family and over utter bullshit brought by the department. I stood by her in court in 2022 during one such conflict. I wasn’t allowed in the courtroom itself, but she’d always say “I love you” before walking back in to fight on her and her child’s behalf.

This woman had been to Hell and back so many times, and always came back stronger than ever. I admire her resiliency for all she’d overcome. She is one of the absolute strongest and purest souls I’ve ever met.

Last week, I had to race around to ensure that she had the engagement ring that I was going to surprise her with after a family member abruptly cancelled the funeral taking place in Massachusetts. What was going to be a birthday surprise turned into a sort of final offering along with my own Wiccan ring and a little stick of love incense all together in a pouch. I nearly had to go to the hospital afterwards with an asthma attack while leaving the funeral home. I could barely tell the director that I had an engagement ring for her without breaking down.

I have been told that only her mother and step-father will ever know what really happed to her, and that her own child and sister are to never know, let alone my family of which she was absolutely a part. She always called my parents Mom and Pop. She looked to my late sister as a younger bonus sibling whom she admired despite never having met. She would cuddle my cats and they trusted her as one of their own while hiding from everyone else. Danielle is a Smale as much as she’s a part of her own family.

As of this writing, we are not receiving a keepsake box or any other sort of remembrance for Dani, so I have been trying to build my own with pictures, little trinkets that she owned and treasured, etc. in the hopes that my family and I have the tiniest bit of peace. There is nobody else that I could love as much as you, and I will love you forever.

I hope to see and hold you again someday soon, my soulmate. I love you, Danielle.