Dear Best Friend

Dear Best Friend,

In a time that feels long ago, in a land not far away, you became an angel. I became a body stuck in limbo. I told myself I was fine, that everything was going to be alright. I wish you would have told me it was going to be hard, I wish you didn't leave. I wish I knew I wasn't going to be alright. I know it wasn't your fault, it was no one's really, but for years I blamed myself. I blamed myself because deep down, still even after all these years, if I had changed a few things in my life, maybe you wouldn't have died from cancer.

Cancer is a disease that is caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells...Not from little girls that are selfish and self-centered. Right? I lost you when I needed you the most. I lost my rock, my hero, my role model, but most importantly I lost the only friend I ever had. You lived in a different state, but you wrote every day to me. You were born before the era of social media, I was born into it, yet you called me every week ever since I could hold a conversation. You were always encouraging me to do my best, believed me when I couldn't believe in myself. You made me feel like I belonged in this world when everyone else made me feel like I didn't. The kids at school weren't friends with me, maybe it was because I wasn't popular, cool or pretty enough or maybe I just wasn't smart enough.

I thought I'd be okay without you. I thought that if you stopped suffering I would be content knowing that you weren't in pain anymore. The night before you passed, you heard me. I know you did or else maybe you would have stayed longer. I told you to go, I told you to move on and that I'd be okay without you. But my friend, please forgive because I lied. I cried for a year straight for you and I begged God to make the pain go away. He listened. Or did you listen? Because I spent the next year and a half not feeling anything, but sadness and hatred for myself. Without you to lean on and help me get back up when I fell, I let the world and everyone else bring me down. When you died, the best part of me died too.

I was on a path of self-hatred, depression, and anxiety. My arms are full of scars and memories of who I am inside—I wasn't okay, my friend. I wish I had known. I wish someone would have told me that saying goodbye to you meant saying goodbye to the best part of me...

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Dear Best Friend,

I lied...I wasn't okay. I'm not sure I'll ever be okay. There are things that happened that only God, you, and I know happened after you left this earth. I block any emotions I feel when I'm reminded of you. Whenever I hear someone has cancer, my heart aches knowing what that person is going through. I hear about people's road to recovery from cancer and I am so thrilled to hear that that person's loved ones don't have to go through the heartbreak, pain, and loss that I did. However, there is a little ping of sadness in my heart when it's reminded that I will never have that. I then go into a trance that I can't get out of at times. I see you laying in that damn bed dying, I hear your whispers of I love you's, I feel the heartache all over again and the worst part of all; I feel you there. I see the memories of us and the tears and the goodbye...

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Dear Best Friend,

It's been over 6 years. I lied, I'm not okay...