Her Strength and Love Inspire Me

I have lived a blessed life. I grew up in a loving home. I have faced hardships, as we all do.. But It wasn't until I was nineteen that my faith was put to the test. It wasn't until July 7, 2014 that I experienced something so heart breaking, waking up every day after that seemed nearly impossible. It was that day that my best friend and first love died. It was sudden, unexpected, and tragic. Some might argue that your first love is never truly your first love. When you are young and naive, you often mistake love for lust. This was not that. Put simply, he was my soul mate. We met when we were twelve years-old in math class. I was the shy, timid girl and he was the class clown. He sat in the desk in front of me, and I would laugh as he threw pencils at the ceiling and our teacher scolded him. We became inseparable. He was my rock, and I was his light. The day he died, I lost a part of me. I will never stop missing him. I have simply learned to adjust. Today I was given this key by my coworker and very close friend. She understands this feeling all too well. She knows how it feels to lose someone that makes you feel whole. She understands that grief is a never ending cycle; It comes in waves. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. Recently, she came to confide in me. It has been years since her mother passed, but on this day... she was drowning. You can't quite understand this until you have experienced death. There is no time limit on grief. There is not a moment that it suddenly gets better. On the bad days, we just need someone to listen. So that is what I did. I listened and we cried. For that, she has given me this key with the word Inspire engraved. I don't know what I did to deserve a friend like her. She is strong-willed, genuine and compassionate. She has a heart of gold to say the least. I am humbled that I have inspired her, because her strength and love inspire me everyday.

-Karissa