Yesterday, my friend Margaret threw a party. It was mostly because she wanted to have people over to eat chocolate and play cards, but it was nominally to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of my sobriety. It was really nice. She baked a cake. My friend Julia had given me flowers for Thanksgiving, maybe because she knew I was having a tough week, maybe just because she’s loving in that way. It’s wonderful to have friends. I’m so lucky.

I had asked my beloved sponsee Sara to give me my chip at my new home group in St. Paul, and she conspired with one of my oldest sober friends to get the chip from the box at my old home group in San Marino, where I took chips every November for 20 years. Kari mailed it to Sara, along with a gorgeous piece of art she made.

It was all so powerful it made me a little nauseous.
I was grateful and happy and overwhelmed. 
So much life.

But.

I woke up yesterday with Jim Carrol’s “People Who Died” on a loop in my head. This year, for some reason, the ghosts were right there with me all day long. In every moment I was conscious of everyone who didn’t make it.

Some people overdosed, some people died by their own hands, some people were murdered in sketchy situations. Some people died in dumb accidents because they were loaded.

Some died sober, but way too young, because of what they had done to their bodies when they were barely more than children.

Some just…died. I don’t really know how or why, I just know we were in the rooms together. Some weren’t close friends, they were just people I knew. But they were family.

Some were completely indispensable, woven into the fabric of my heart and my daily life, and then they died.

There weren’t any rules about it, but I knew some people were gone in a different way. Conrad – who used to delight in shouting “Mazel Tov!” at me – died very old and very sober. I loved him, I miss him, but he’s not a ghost.

What I really wanted yesterday was to invite all the ghosts to the party. I wasn’t sure I could go otherwise. I couldn’t celebrate that I didn’t die without acknowledging how many of us did.

So I asked Margaret if I could build a fire in her pit. She said yes, and then my friend Richard actually built it for us. I wrote the names of all my ghosts on pieces of paper, and I threw them in the fire. There was a little bit of snow falling, and I could see Margaret’s kitchen through the window, full of food and sober people in nice soft warm clothes, getting ready to play cards.

Some of my friends started adding some of their people too. I had my Mimi – my beloved, my person – on the phone at the exact time my old home group used to start every Saturday in L.A., and she named some of her people, and I wrote them down and threw them in. My husband was there, he threw his father in. I poured one out from my Mandarin Jarritos every now and then, onto the frosty ground.

In the end, it was a really big ghost party, and that felt exactly right.

Back in the day, there was always some old dude whose share would involve growling “if you stick around, you’d better get yourself a Big Book and a black suit”. I always thought that was a bit melodramatic. I don’t anymore.

I know for a fact I forgot people. Please tell me who I forgot. There will be more parties, more fires, more life.

Ken, Leslie, Beverly. Elizabeth, Maureen, Jan, Val. Pat, Amy, Sean, Matthew, John, Lisa, Mark, Erin, Allen, Jordan, Cameron, Cara, Daniel, Nasir, Peter, Ross, Claire.  So many more.

They were all my friends, and they died.