Farewell, Friend.

After 32 years I am finally experiencing what so many others have had to go through earlier in life, the loss of a friend.  The loss of anyone, really.  I've never been close enough with someone who has died to have it really take it's effect on me until now.  Death has been this abstract notion, this feeling of "oh well, it was their time" or "it's an unfortunate part of life", but now that the feeling is so close to home I'm overwhelmed with emotions.  And not even really for myself, for my loss specifically, but for the loss of those who were really actually very close to Candice; for her husband and daughter, her parents and sister and the rest of her close friends and family, it is for those who I am so saddened for, who I'm angry for, who I feel have been so hugely wronged.  I almost even feel guilty for feeling so emotional about her death because we did not remain close friends and I don't feel like I should be taking up so much pain.  But Candice was one of the very first people who I consciously decided I wanted to become my friend when we were 7 years old.  We were in the first grade and for some reason I decided that I really wanted to be friends with the two girls who sat in front of me, Candice Crider and Ashley Anderson.  So while coloring one day I broke my favorite red crayon so that I could ask to borrow the one they were sharing...luckily they said yes and we became the best of friends.  Sleepovers, after school play sessions, trouble-making, we spent countless hours together.  As we grew older we made new friends but never let go of the early friendship we had created.  Candice is, was, and always will be one of the truly good people.  The kind of person you only wish the best for.  Her death is such a loss for us all.

I am desperately trying, and eventually will be able to get over the hurt and sadness and anger and let Candice's life be a reminder to not take life for granted.  Life is hard and full of pain but it is too short to not focus on the good aspects of it, the things we do have, the good people in our lives, the things we have worked so hard for that have paid off, and keep in our hearts the people we have lost who will never be forgotten.

Farewell, Candice.  May whatever lies ahead be exactly as you had hoped.