Amilca's Birthday
Today would have been one of my good friend, Amilca's 29th birthday. Her birthday is exactly two weeks to the day before mine and we were best friends from birth. It's hard not to get sad wondering what her life would have been like if she had made it to 29, or realizing that it has been almost three years without her voice in my world. And I know she is at peace. I know this with the logical part of my brain that is capable of reason, but the heart knows nothing of reason. It doesn't ever fully understand or learn to accept loss. It scabs and heals, but leaves a permanent scar that, with time, grows softer to the touch.
And there is so much I want to do, for us both, in this last year before I become three decades old, which seems like such a long time and such a short time in the same breath -- a complete paradox, like many things in life. Sometimes I feel lazy, thinking of how precious and uncertain life is and how we should all be working 24 hours a day to have the best life possible and frowning on opportunities that I let slide through my fingers like so many grains of sand.
And I love her still. I still remember her smile. The rich warmth of her laugh. She would have been 29 today. I know somewhere she is singing and that thought alone makes me smile.