Trying...

I've heard that the longer someone is gone from your life, the easier it becomes. You learn to live your days without them. I have adjusted as best as I can to knowing that I won't see you anymore, but it hasn't gotten any easier. I keep waiting for that part to kick in.

I miss you all the time, Steff. On Easter Sunday it was nearly unbearable. I cried for you all morning. Knowing that last year Derick and your mom brought you home from the hospital for the day, and I brought you that silly bunny and chocolate eggs, even though I knew you wouldn't eat them. This year all I could do was look your photo and miss you. It felt surreal.

Watching Derick try and live without you is even more difficult to bare than my own pain. He is doing his best to "move on", but everyone can see how wounded his heart still is. I think everyone can see it but him sometimes. He believes that he has grieved you, or at least he wants to believe it. But the brokenness shows through his strong exterior and shatters the possibility of healed heart every time your name is mentioned. It breaks me to watch him hurt for you.

I know that he has to move on. I just don't know how to feel sometimes. I try to be supportive. I try to accept things as they are and look at the bright side, but sometimes I feel like I'm just not ready to let you go. In my heart, you're still his girl and that is hard for me to let go of.

I don't want to ever betray your memory or our friendship and that is what I struggle the most with now. I suppose there would never be a time when I'd be ready to let you go or let go of you two being together. Maybe no matter how much time passes I will still hurt to see him with someone else because I always thought it was going to be you - forever. And him moving on is just a reminder that you're never coming back no matter how many times I wish it to be reality

Just know that no matter what, I will always love you and so will he. No one can ever replace you, not for a second.

There Is No Reason

When I was a little girl someone told me that tears were a gift from God to wash away all the pain. As a child, I found comfort in this notion. It made sense to my fragile heart because I always felt better after I cried. Lately nothing works. Sometimes it feels as if though I'm going to run out of tears I cry for you so often. Why can't the tears wash away the pain of not having you anymore? Why?!

I keep trying to make sense of it all. But the more I try to analyze it and find a reason that I can accept, the more frustrated I get. Apparently grief can make you believe things have a reason when they don't. There was no reason for you to die - especially not in the vicious way you did. There is no lesson to be learned. It just is what it is. All I can do is say Fuck Cancer!!!  and even that doesn't help. It just makes me feel better to have something to blame I guess. I miss you so much. My heart aches for you, Steff.

I miss your pretty face. I miss your contagious laugh, I miss your friendship. I miss your understanding demeanor. I just miss you - everything about you. What I would give for you to interrupt me (I never thought I'd miss that and yet somehow I do) just one more time.

Your memory is a keepsake from which I’ll never part, God has you in his arm, and I have you in my heart!

Love you, girl. <3