Inspiring Friendship

 

My Dearest Kendra,

Kendra is the kind of girl that is magnetic to be around, and only gets more so with time. Her charisma, her light of inner beauty, strength, happiness and obvious nature of a child of Christ keeper her being a selfless leader to her friends, her community and her family. Kendra naturally becomes the leader of everything, her high school volley ball team, being prom queen, leading SLO crusade talks, and eventually becoming president of our sorority, Kendra is a natural born leader. But in ways that you would never think of a typical leader. Kendra is empathetic, genuinely thinks about every decision and EVERY thing before she makes decisions. I would say she is more than a leader. She is caretaker, she is a mover and she most of all, she has a heart that resembles finding home.

I first became close to Kendra in my sorority, when we were chosen as president and risk management chair. Together, we worked the closest, trying to deflect any problems that came our way, solve internal relations, and be the go to with problems from the chapter. And boy were there problems. Kendra and I found our nights being taken away from studying to attend to peoples problems with how our chapter was developing, with late night talks about threats to our leadership and so much more. We were trying to do our jobs the best we could, but all of our work turned personal. We would receive personal attacks on our leadership. We worked hard to have countless meetings, discussion sessions and plan events and workshops to help this. Kendra, especially, met with everyone who had suggestions, to try and get ourselves to the respect we needed. Still, people would bring us down, not understanding we were working as hard as we could to serve them.

While the year was hard, we faced countless ethical dilemmas, losses of respect and friendship, but most importantly, blows to our character. But Kendra NEVER stopped inspiring me and others to not give up. She would constantly turn around with a positive smile on her face, think of the best way to look at the situation, and continued to lead with grace, a genuine nature, and soft heart. She never let this take down who she was on the inside, and never let anger and frustration of being attacked get the best of her. She was diplomatic and she was kind. She helped me when it all became too much, and continued to strive to do the best job we could do.

Kendra has always been inspiring in my eyes. She has become one of my closest friends through what we had to go through together. We became inseparable, and through all the work we were thrown, all the balancing and tests thrown our way, Kendra continued to love me, to get to know me, and to support me through everything going on in my life.

Kendra is the light of my life. She is my best friend, my sister and my companion. I rarely strive to be anything but myself, but Kendra's ora and essence makes me want to be a little more like her everyday. I cannot even put into words without tearing up how much she has changed my life, helped me find faith, and remember to never give up. That is why I have passed my giving key to Kendra. It states the word inspiration, and her grace and love is nothing but inspiring. I have seen her develop into the woman she has always wanted to be and I could not be more proud and inspired that through all of this she found herself.

I love you Kendra!! You are a special person, apart from all the rest, and I hope you never forget you have a magnetic personality for success to come.