I Will Always Remember

Today, I've laughed so hard I couldn't breathe and I've cried while washing purple chalk out of my hair, but the biggest thing I've done today, they most important,  is I remembered.

A year ago today, February 27, the news came that a friend of mine had passed from her earthly life, to live for eternity as a beautiful angel. I met Rachael though a Facebook page for teens with feeding tubes and we connected instantly, or at least I know for me we did. We had so much in common; both of us love the color purple, hello kitty, and rainbows, and as time went on it didn't matter what was going on with my health talking to her could make me smile. She understood, what it's like to be young and sick at the same time, as to most people those two things are mutually exclusive but to us they weren't. 

Over the past year I can't count the number of times I've gone back through and read our conversations. They sometimes seem so frivolous when I look back on them now, talking about dream dates or the beach, but they were what we needed then, an escape. As I get closer and closer to February of last year the messages slow and eventually they stop all together. That is one thing I regret, that I didn't use all the time I had, but I didn't anticipate that being all I would ever have. It's not something I think about often; I push the fact that all these diseases can so quickly take any one of us away from this place. But it is the overwhelming truth, that on days like today can so easily catch up to me.

I think about how we could so easily be in the opposite position with her writing this and me watching down from among the angels, and the thought scares me. I think about her family, her sweet mom and her dad, holding their baby for the last time and it makes me angry. Life shouldn't be this way. Children shouldn't go through what Rachael did, and gorgeous angel I promise, as long as there is still breath in my body and blood running through my veins, I will not stop trying to make this right. I may not be able to bring you back but, with your memory, Rachael, I will fight to fix the way things are done, so nobody has to go thorough what you and your family did ever again. 

I will always remember, and never quit fighting. That is a Promise.