Abbi Weeks
It’s been almost three years, Mel, and I still miss you. I often recall the last conversation I got to have with you, a quick chat over Vietnamese lattées from the café I would walk to for us. It was my sixteenth birthday and I had nowhere to go but the theatre. We talked at lengths about college and the future and my many, many anxieties. You told me to never quit making art and, as always, you proved to be very persuasive. I wish endlessly that I could tell you how it all went. I have a tattoo in memory of you and your deeply settled impact on me. The quarter rest on my left wrist is a daily reminder of how you would tell us “Respect the Rest!” I try, Mama Mel, I try very hard. I love you!
