(rain-rain-rain.)

I'm sad today. Comprehending that time will continue to go by no matter how hard I want it to stop. Wishing Micah would walk in the door and crack a joke/tickle me/do something to make me laugh. Wondering how another summer without Micah can be approaching. Tired of only being surface-happy and wondering how long it'll be that way. Tired of being optimistic and deep-insighted and brave and in the spotlight and "beautiful" and mature...sometimes I just want to be a normal 19-year-old and not have a care in the world.

And then I think, "If only this all had never happened." Then you really could be here. So many things would be different." But why do I torture myself with that question? You're not here and I'm here instead. I can't go back.

A Meeting.

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same,
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I that have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: "How you been?"
He grins and looks at me.
"I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees."
-Wendell Berry

What's "stressed" spelled backwards? "Desserts"!

Today I made about 30+ of these scrumptious cupcakes (chocolate with peanut butter icing!) and delivered them to people. I always feel better after 1) eating chocolate 2) blasting music in my kitchen while baking and 3) making others feel happy from a surprise bakery delivery. In this game, everyone wins.

Here are some things I continue to fill my life up with...

1) Being a "swim buddy" at Schreiber Pediatric Center---helping preschoolers swim in Schreiber's awesome indoor, heated pool. Some have evident physical or mental disabilities, but a majority of them are mildly-diagnosed. Either way, its always a blast (and sheesh, its always a workout.)

2) Volunteering at Clare House, a temporary home/transitional center for homeless women and their children. Basically I babysit the children for several hours when their mothers have house-meetings. Clare House is a really neat program and its been eye-opening to be around poverty in a way I've never been before.

3) Being a soccer coach/helper for TOPSoccer, a program through Schreiber. This is a six week program that teaches basic soccer skills to children with disabilities. Micah loved soccer and would be proud...so this one is for him. :)

4) Babysitting, at least once a week, which is always rewarding because the kids are so cute.

5) Various other jobs that arise...like teaching Sunday School every couple of weeks or so, or random art jobs.

Besides that, relaxing, reading, hanging out with family, not cleaning my room, watching Lost with the Bertholds, cuddling with my kitten, going on adventures with my Grandma, staying up late and sleeping in late...it continues to be a great semester off and I'm super grateful to be here.

The Year of Magical Thinking.

"Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."

This is the first sentence in Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking." Joan is a novelist that writes about the first year of her husband's instant death, after he has a heart attack. Ironically, I had read her book several years ago, but I recently reread it, of course now with a completley different perspective.

I've tried about 50 times this past week to sit down, reflect, and write about this year. But somehow I just haven't been able to do it. I think it's because this year has been something far beyond words. It forced me to wrap my mind around death. It took my previous standards for life and threw them out the door. It ripped from me something I loved and cherished, and shoved me instead into a world of confusion and loss.

But these things I can say with confidence from this year. I've learned them from Micah, in both his life and death:

1) Life is fragile. It is short. Accidents happen, dreams break easily, loss is inevitable.

2) You've got to make the most of life, because it is short. You've got to fill it with things you love, things that you can say, "No Regrets" to. You've got to relax and laugh at the top of your lungs and take risks. You've got to cherish those around you, and welcome them with bear hugs and surprise gifts. You've got to praise God, or whatever keeps you grateful and going. You've got to find the perfect balance of living for others, with compassion; but also living for yourself, with forgiveness.

3) In the darkest of darks, there somehow always seems to be a distant glow of hope. For me, it has been the support of my community; and for the bond I've found with Micah's family. The trick is to learn to keep the glow at a close enough distance to let it light your future; even though it may often look dark.

Micah died. Yet Micah also lived. I'm slowly learning to incorporate the first, but hold tightly onto the second.

Maybe Joan's words will only ever give it justice. It has, indeed, been The Year of Magical Thinking.

4/8/10.

"He made the world to be a grassy road; before her wandering feet."

One year later, and I still can't find the words to say goodbye.
But maybe I'll never have them.

Flashback.

Monday night. The hallway light streams into my bedroom as my dad opens my door ajar. Becca? Can you wake up? Before my eyes can adjust, I'm sitting up in bed, trying to understand the words coming from his lips. Phone call. Micah. Accident. Hospital. But we had just said goodnight. But you had just told me you loved me and would see me in the morning.

Late Monday night. A claustrophobic waiting room in the ER. Why is everyone looking so somber? Only when a doctor enters saying, "he's alive" and everyone sighs with relief do I realize how serious it is.

Early Monday morning. An eternity of waiting. When I hear the words "almost died in surgery" I put a blanket over my head and whisper "breath in, breath out" for you, for hours. I want to be able to breath for you, to somehow make this nightmare stop.

Tuesday. By now word has broken out, and friends pour into the hospital by the dozen. We sit together in shock and silence. They say you've squeezed a nurse's hand--there's hope and we cling to it desperately. If he just makes it through this night, they say, it'll be a good sign.

So I go to bed in the waiting room, only to stir awake suddenly at 4:00 am.

Wednesday. When I wake up in the morning, they tell me you began to decline, irreversibly, sometime around 4:00. Death is not the release we wanted, but at least it is a release.

My first visit to the accident site.

This morning our wheels follow the path that yours did almost a year ago--with flowers in hand we trample over weeds and grass. We stare back at the road, silent. I try to comprehend what I'm feeling. Anger? No. Panic? No. It's disappointment. I had half expected to find you here, somehow, even if it meant twisted rubble and wailing sirens. I had half expected to see your car fly by, to yell STOP, to yell WAKE UP, to yell SLOW DOWN, to do something, anything, to make this end differently. But there's nothing here but concrete, and my heart sinks.

What happened here that night, almost a year ago? Somehow this simple road became more than a road--it became a spot of broken dreams, just as broken as your body. It twisted our lives like the metal of your car, instantly and irreversibly. It startled us awake from our slumber and from our innocence of life. The what-if's and how's and why's echo with every passing car.

For this we have to be thankful for: that God was with you, that your friends were there, that no one else was hurt, that you weren't killed instantly, that it was what it was and nothing more--that this place was once lit up with light, sirens, and chaos; but now the neighboring field sits calm, peaceful, and at rest.