I don't know about you all, but even at 38 years old, I still feel better when I vent to my mother.

The child version of this was, "I'm telling Mommy!"

The adult version of this is a venting of all frustrations over Chinese food.

I no more than walked in the door at Mother's yesterday when I said, "Let's go eat Chinese."

(Coming from rural West Virginia, you can imagine how often I get access to such cultural foods.)

Then, while eating stuffed mushroom caps and General Tso's Chicken, I basically blather out all the frustrations I have, while Mother chews her food and nods.

When I'm finished, she says things like, "You're growing, and the job isn't growing with you."

Then she suggests things like taking a class (even though I have a degree) or her favorite pitch - move.

She knows that moving is a last resort, but always notes it as an option.

Either way, it's nice to vent to someone who understands where, literally, I'm coming from.

The other thing I have access to here that we don't have at home (by choice) - television.

Mother went to bed after the 11 o'clock news, but I was stuck in the easy chair, remote in hand, surfing channels.

I would pause here and there - checking out what new bublle gum for the brain hollywood has created - and after watching the guy who gives messages to the living from the dead, caught myself on the Country Music channel just in time to see Brooks and Dunn's video for "I Believe."

It then occurred to me that there have been several deaths lately that I had not processed properly through the stages of grief. I've been too busy.

Last November, we lost a dog and a cat. It may seem trivial to those without pets, but Honey, our doberman, was the sweetest dog, and often made us laugh. Strange Kitty was my kitty - my friend of 18 years. He was the only one who had been with me, constantly, for that long.

Now, we have no inside pets. The house seems empty.

Two weeks ago, Heidi died.

Now that's a hard one to explain.

I met Heidi when I was a young teen. She lived in the low income housing units at the end of our road. I baby sat for her often - never having a problem waiting for the first of the month to get paid.

In return, she let me smoke, drink, have my boyfriend over when I was baby sitting. She taught me about the reality of the world - you know, the dark side that your parents try to protect you from.

She taught me to play cribbage, how to wash dishes properly. How to dance so the guys would watch and the women would hate me. How to fight and not get my ass kicked. How to treat a hangover.

I have a vivid memory of being half drunk with her after she broke up with a boyfriend and us playing Tine Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It" over and over as we sang at the top of our lungs. Perhaps a tainted memory, but a precious and dear one to me.

She was like a step sister to me, and a step child to my family. We couldn't help but love her, even though her entire life of welfare and assistance was completely contradictory to the Republican and Christian beliefs of our home.

Heidi knew the "ins and outs" of the system, and played the system well. Some saw it as taking advantage. Others saw it as the epitome of welfare gone amuk. I knew, by knowing her, that her study of and knowledge of how far to bend the rules was mostly a matter of survival.

No matter where I went - college, a neighboring town, the middle of nowhere in Central WV - when I saw her again, it was like we never missed a day. She never stopped referring to me as "Lisa Leigh" - my first and middle names as one name, often used when I was in trouble, or there were more than one Lisa in the picture.

A name all others left behind as I became an adult.

Heidi had lyposuction, hysterectomies, cysts removed - all at the state's expense. She loved, and finally settled with Johnny, a man who scared me half to death. He wasn't mean per se, he just looked that way. And after 12 years together, when she was diagnosed with bone cancer - Johnny left her.

Oh yes, she had prescriptions. Morphine, Oxycontin, Darvoset. She broke her arm, and it never healed. She had a broken arm for six years before she died. Her neck bowed under the weight of her head. Beofre long, her nights were spent along sitting in the only chair in which she found some comfortable position, drinking brandy and taking pills.

Once, about a year ago, she called me late in the evening.

"Lisha Leigh!" The conversation started, telling me instantly who the caller was, and how much brandy she had had to drink that evening. She cried easily, and at one point, she asked me a question I knew was the reason she called.

"Lisa, do you think God is punishing me for my sins?"

I told her that I did not think so, that the God I knew was not one of punishment, that action and consequences are natural balancers, without any sentencing from God.

Once, she was beautiful. A true blonde, she drew on her eyebrows every morning. Perfect skin, and so smart. She was a product of her environment.

I hadn't heard from her in almost a year when I read the news in the Marietta times. She was indicted for murder - for giving an 18 year old girl some Oxycontin - which led to the girl's death.

I debated in my mind. Call? Visit? What do I do?

I put off the decision too long, and two weeks ago she died.

And now I will never hear, "Lisa Leigh" again.