10 Years of Tonia Says - Dear Tonia

Thank you for joining us again to continue the celebration of 10 years of Tonia Says. 

This week’s prompt is Dear Tonia / Dear Tonia Says Free Write.

I feel so grateful that our friends have taken time out of their busy schedules to think about Tonia and, in this case, write directly to her.

Feel free to share your feelings in the comments. 

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[Image: A smiling white woman with short hair -- Tonia -- holds a small green stuffed dragon next to her cheek. She is wearing a gray v-neck t-shirt with the words Up North on her right upper chest in green situated inside a green silhouette of the state of Minnesota. The silhouette is surrounded by green pine trees.]

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Dear Tonia, 

It’s hard to believe we are celebrating 10 years of Tonia Says! The work you did and continue to do has changed so many lives; even now people are still discovering your work and interacting with it, and that is so amazing. 

I hope you know just how much you are loved and missed. You left such a big impact behind; we still feel you here with us everyday. Sometimes, it still doesn’t feel real because of how present you still are in our hearts. 

Love,

Alyssa

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Dear Tonia, 

Honestly, I don’t know what to say here. Some things seem too obvious. Others, too complicated to fit in a blog post. Still others are too sacred to share publicly. I thought about sharing memories, but let’s be real, your memory was way better than mine. If I asked, “do you remember…” the answer would be yes. 

I guess I’ll say the obvious things: I miss you. I love you. I feel so lucky to have known you. I feel even luckier to have met you. I wish I had biked to your apartment that random Saturday that started our weekly video chats, because I wish like hell the first time I met you in person hadn’t been in the hospital. But we still made it good, didn’t we? As good as it could be. And I’ll never regret a single second we spent together, whether we were reading your books or sleeping. 

Thank you for not dying until I got there. I told Tara the other day that my whole drive up, I was slowly clicking the cruise control a notch higher every few miles, the fear of speeding shrinking as the fear of losing you grew. I was probably going nearly 90 mph at one point. But I didn’t get a ticket and I made it in time to say goodbye to you, so it all worked out, didn’t it?

That’s a morbid way to end this letter, so I’ll try for something a little more fun: Tara and I are going to read a new book about a high school production of Wicked and the fight to play Elphaba. I wish you could hear it. We’ll tell you all about it.

Love,

Emery

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Dear Tonia,

There are so many things I wish I could write to you, but I think I’ll write about something I’m sure you would share my joy in…

This year, after 13 years of waiting and wishing to return, I made it back to a wheelchair sports camp in Minnesota. It was a dream come true to get there, after so many years of dreaming and even planning for it. 

I had no idea yet what an impact the Camp experience also had on your life, but I thought of you especially, every single day I was there. I wish you could have experienced it with me, Tonia. But I’m even happier to know now, that you DID have a life-changing Camp experience, which you wrote about both in your blog and in your fictional works. 

Tara and I are reading “Windows” now, and I’m re-experiencing the joys of my dream-camp-week, as well as enjoying the story you wrote, and hearing little pieces of real life events that wrapped their way into your story.

Thank you for our friendship, for your love, and your gentleness. I loved seeing how much you cared about and for others, even while facing so much yourself. I loved seeing you find joy in small things - beautiful, delicious, or just plain silly! I always hope that my life reflects some of the beautiful qualities I had the privilege to see and experience in you. 💛

~ Julie ~

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Dear Tonia, 

I don’t remember if you were around for this particularly foolish social media trend, but you know the one where people tie water bottles to their ceiling fan, blindfold themselves, and then try to dodge them? As you can probably imagine, this does not end well. In fact, people inevitably end up getting beaned in the head by a water bottle. Sometimes it’s multiple in a row, back to back to back. I was saying in therapy today that I wish someone would turn off the ceiling fan that is life without you and the other loved ones I’ve lost and the state of the world and the inaccessibility my friends and I are faced with at seemingly every turn. Then there’s a little bit of guilt involved, too, because you’re gone, and all you wanted was more time. I want to make sure I’m using my time well, in a way that would honor my friendship with you. 

The thing is, you were such a great friend. I read some other folks’ tributes to you as I was thinking about what I had to say for this post, and just, across the board, your impact is immeasurable. I wish I had your patience as you gently guided abled folks to the realizations that they needed to have in order to better support disabled people. I really admire all of the emotional labor you put into explaining things in a way that people can understand without having experienced it themselves. You have opened my eyes to certain aspects of disability culture that didn’t directly affect me, so I wasn’t aware of them before you told me about them. 

I find myself not really knowing how to end this post, and then it hit me that some things don’t have satisfying endings. Sometimes things just end, and we have no choice but to figure out the next part by ourselves. I think about all the things that have happened since you died that you would have loved, and it makes me smile any time one of those signs from you shows up to let us know that you’re still here in your own way. It’s not the same, but I cherish your memory always. 

Love,

Kayla

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Dear Tonia –

I just woke up from a nightmare where we were asleep in a strange house, when someone woke me to tell me that four tornadoes were headed straight for us. (I know, I know – too much 9-1-1: Lonestar…) 

When I looked out the window, the sky was the jeweled purple of a bruise, and lit up with brilliant flashes of lightning. And four tornadoes were indeed gliding toward us at a clip.

I hurried to wake you, but you were difficult to rouse. I begged you, “Tonia, please wake up!”

Finally, you did. I explained about the tornadoes and that we had to get to safety.

You, the person who used to hunker down at the first mention of severe weather, looked me in the eye and said, “I think I'll stay here instead.”

For a moment, I was incredulous. I sputtered, “After a lifetime spent meticulously preparing for something like this, this is what you're doing?”

And you calmly said, “Yes.”

“Scoot over,” I replied.

“Wait. Really?” You asked, your eyes full of wonder.

And we locked the door and huddled together as the walls shook and the wind screamed like a high speed train.

Except somehow, you are gone and I'm still here, and I still don't know what to do with that.

It still feels like you're just in the next room. 

But if that were true, I would have definitely bugged you by now. 

My mind just cannot comprehend that you're not physically here. And maybe, on some level, I don't want it to.

I love you. I'm so proud of you. 

Love, 

Me (Tara)

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Thank you so much for helping remember and celebrate Tonia. Tune in next Monday for another post.

Next week's prompt is: How Do You Combat Internalized Ableism?

Please send any submissions you would like included in next week's post to tarasays1@gmail.com by Sunday, August 11th at 10 PM Central.