You are my Destiny...

Everyone's a critic.

They're called starving artists for a reason.

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It's a love story; baby just say yes. Ohhhhh!

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But if I never ever hear them right, if nothing else, I'll think the bells inside have finally found you someone else...

    A year ago yesterday, one of my friends from high school past away due to a freak brain aneurism.  A year ago Saturday, she was 19, home from college from the summer, and driving to her first day of work when she got into a car accident, caused by her sudden lack of function, and was pronounced dead on the scene, but was revived.  But then the next day, she was no longer 19.  She was no longer a fantastic artist or older sister.  She was no longer the beautiful fiancé of the man she loved, she was no longer a new sophomore in college with the words "70 days: Don't Go Back the Same" written in dry erase marker on her mirror.

    She was eternal, with her Father in Heaven, smiling down on everyone in that way only she could.  

    But in that last day, when she was just hanging on because we asked her to, when there was so little of her left, she was still Kate, being the amazing girl she had always been.  I don't remember how many people she saved in her death, the number of organs she gave out to people who would have died without them, but that number is insignificant when compared to the number of lives she saved in her life.  With her love, with her patience and excitement about everything, with her smile.  

    Kate and I were not close; she was in the grade above me, and we only spoke on a few occasions.  But we volunteered together at our church, and we were in the same house group in High school.  I remember looking at her and her small group and wishing I could be one ounce like her and like them.  Not because they were cool, though they were, and not because they were pretty, though every one of them could have been a model and no picture of them was bad, but because they were the closest friends I've ever seen.  They still are, two years later, and a year after this kind of tragedy.  

    I'll probably always remember one of the few conversations I had with Kate.  We served together in the junior-high ministry at our church where we were small-group leaders for girls for three years.  One day, near the end of the ministry's season, Kate leaned over to me during break-outs and asked, "Do you know, are we going to be with the girls for that summer camp in August?"  I said, "Oh no, thank heavens.  The camp is staffed by counsellors who will be with them."  And Kate wrinkled her forehead a little bit, "Oh, dang.  I wish I could go.  I'm sure they're going to grow a lot spiritually in that week, and I wish I could be there to watch."

    Because that was Kate.

    Eleven-ish months ago, I got a tattoo on my ankle.  It says "All In" in honor of Kate.  At her funeral (attended by well over 300 people) her boyfriend described her as "All in, all the time."  I wanted to be like that, and to never forget that week of my life.

    Without fail, every time I wear shorts, someone new notices my tattoo and asks what it's about.  And, without fail, I almost always jokingly say "I play a lot of cards."  If they press the matter, I might say something like, "I got it after one of my friends from High School died," and then they usually drop it.  

    I say these things, these half-truths, because when I got that tattoo, I knew that every time I saw it, I would see Kate's beautiful face, and be given another boost to try to be the person God wants me to be, just like Kate always was.  And I knew that sometimes, I would just want to live alone with that memory.

    As I look back on this year of my life after her death, I see successes, I see failures, I see a lot of struggles, a lot of pain, but a lot of victories.  I started this post with the intention of berating myself towards the end, spilling out to you all the times I've looked down at my ankle and cried out in sudden agony, realizing how far away I'd drifted, how much I'd already forgotten.  But I see now, I can't forget, no matter how many times I feel I've failed.  

    A lot of people I know have died in the past, and they've all affected me differently, but Kate sticks out to me in death just as she did in life.  And I know I can't be just like her, and I know God doesn't want me to be, but I'm not worried that I'm ignoring that tug on my soul that I feel sometimes, that I've since named Katherine René, because slowly, that tug doesn't even get the chance to pull anymore.  Slowly, the things I want for myself in any given moment are becoming the things I think she would have wanted for me, things God would have wanted for me, so much so that I no longer even notice.

    So anyway.  That was just a really long method of saying that I'm sorry if I ever told you I just like cards.  But you have to understand, sometimes I don't even feel right having that tattoo visible to the world.  It's a little contract between me and God, with Kate as the signing witness.  And today, I'm rereading it, I guess.  Renewing it, definitely.  Reliving it, thankfully.  It hurts, but it's something I need and want to do.

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