An Open Letter After 10 Years of Grief

Sunday, April 8th was my best friend's 10th anniversary of passing.  Here is a post about her if you missed it before.   So here is an open letter to her.

Oh Nikki. It’s been 10 years. have no profound revelations I’ve made or milestones of overcoming grief. Often I just sit and wonder what would you be doing now? Where would you be? Would we still be best friends ? Would you have been at my wedding and I at yours?  What would you look like now? When I’m 80 and thinking of you are you going to be ageless still or will I feel like I’m thinking about a 22 year old? 

What advice would you give me? What judgements would you make? Can you still give me advice or do you still only have he mind of a 22 year old ?  Are you still in the white butterflies I see all the time? When I swear I hear someone whisper my name at least once a month, is it you?

The first 5 years since you’ve been gone have been filled with a grief pain that made me reflect on all the memories we had that I’d never have again, the second 5 years filled with thoughts of how many secrets and inside jokes we had and still have but how lonely it is to not have a single other living soul that knows them. 

I can only assume that the next 5 years will be like how the last few months have been, where I wonder what you would be like today if you were still here. 

And I wonder what the 5 years after that and after those 5 years will be like. Grief changes forms but never disappears but that’s okay because every time I see people I know talking about their best friends they’ve had since childhood, I smile. When young teen girls in front of me at Rita’s are bouncing around talking about boys and inside jokes with their skinny jeans and makeup, I smile.  When I see 2 girls running errands together, I smile.  

Because these are the reminders I have of what you and i had as if it were still living on today. 

It’s been lonely and I missed not having someone there 24/7 as I went through the rest of my 20’s. But I never let it make me bitter or resentful that I lost and never got to experience again something that other people still have. Because at least I had it. 

And someday when I’m old and dying I’ll lay there and reflect on my life and will no longer feel my heart twist when I think of you. Instead of you being the only thing I don’t have anymore among everything I have, you’ll be one of the many things that I had at  one point in life that I’m leaving behind when I go. And I say leaving behind because I hope when I turn around our energies will once again be reunited so we can sprint through the earth together, giggling as we go. 

I love you my Nikki Nikkita. 

7-22-85 to 4-8-08

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