on losing Karen

I lost my best friend Karen last month. She passed away after battling with lupus for eighteen years. She was 28.

I still sometimes cannot believe that she's gone. My husband and I sometimes recall something about her and we start to talk about her as if she were still alive. Then I'd remember that she is gone forever. And it is just so strange...that she is gone. Gone in its truest sense... never coming back, never to see her again, never to hear her voice, never knowing how she is. It's just so hard to believe sometimes.

It's hard to believe that I will not see her again in this lifetime. It's even painful when I am reminded that I will no longer share a conversation with her. No more talks over two cups of coffee. I try to recall the last time she sat in our kitchen as we had coffee on a Saturday afternoon. I remember she was wearing a blue shirt and had gained weight because of her lupus. She was laughing at the craziness of gaining ten pounds in a week's time. "Kahit buntis hindi tataba ng ganito kabilis", she had said.

Oh Lord, it's unbelievable.

Death is a common thing I hear about and read about. But to lose someone you love so dearly is something else. I am at a loss for words to explain how I feel. It's not sadness. It's emptiness.

I am struggling so hard to go back to my rhythm, to find my positivity again. I yearn to go back to my usual self... the person who always finds the goodness in things, who sees miracles in the very ordinary daily routine. Miracles. That's what I need now . Nothing grand, just enough to help me keep believing everything that I held true: that everything happens for a reason, that God's love is so much more than I can possibly comprehend, that He has beautiful plans for me, that there is life everlasting.

I'd really love to move on.