Tuesday, August 16, 2011

No longer at a loss for words...

Loss is hard to stomach.

It is hard, painful, and just seems to stick around.

There is something that stings a bit more, especially when the individual is young. Especially when they had so much life to live.

I have known LeeAnn since 9th grade. She is my best friend, pretty much my twin. She is the girl who made her self at home the first time I brought her home. The girl who spent 4 nights a week at my house during high school, who would drive to school with me, share clothes with me, eat batches of puppy chow with me, buy groceries and pack cold lunches with me. The girl who is there, whenever, no matter the hour. The girl who shared her family with me, and I shared mine with her. The girl whose family is and always will be her everything.

LeeAnn lost her sister at the beginning of June. I lost a little girl who I had watched grow up. We lost a young, beautiful, insanely energetic Maddie.

Life has been different since her passing. I can be driving in the car, and my mind will wander for 20, 30 minutes. I will ponder what she was like, how lively and upbeat she was. I think about who she would have been, and where her life would have taken her. I hear certain songs on the radio, and they make my stomach turn. I find myself looking at facebook pictures and realize that 45 minutes has passed. I just get lost in the situation. I get caught up in her life.

I wish like nothing that we could rewind, that I could say something, that we could all have made her change her mind. I wish with everything inside of me that her life would not have ended. I wish I wouldn't have to watch my best friend and her family mourn. I wish I didn't have to watch her mom break down. I wish there were no memorial pictures on facebook, no picture montages online. I wish she was at home, with her family, right now, enjoying a warm August evening.

I wish the little girl who caught the bouquet at my wedding, was alive and well and thriving.
But since she is not, all I can do is pray with everything inside me that someday, her family won't hurt this bad. And I know it may come, but it sure is a rough journey.

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