Ok! Well as I mentioned before, I have been blessed with a handful of truly best friends in my life! I am pretty much still in contact with all of them, so here is a brief synopsis...
I am lucky enough to have one of those best friends be my husband Blake! I know that sounds cliche, but I think that is a very important quality in a spouse. He is the only person I see everyday that has a direct impact on the way I feel about life, love, family, and just plain emotions! So it is a good thing he is also my best friend! I know he has my back all the time, and that he has my best interest at heart. I'm so glad we found each other, we were definitely meant to be!
I have several best friends from growing up, I had my church friends and then my school friends, and lucky for me as we grew older the two kind of meshed so we were all pretty close. Cynthia and Jessica were church friends. Cynthia and I basically have known each other since we were born! We are the same age and grew up in the same ward, just a block away from each other, our mom's were friends, and we went to school together!
Jessica moved in when we were 7. I was standing in primary one day when the teacher came up to me and asked if I could show the new girl around. I turned to look at her, and we both swear we already knew each other! The thing is though, that she had just moved from New York! She did live in Fairbanks when we were 4, but went to a different ward, and chances are very slim that we would have remembered each other from a chance meeting when we were 4! We became instant friends! Our birthdays are just two weeks apart, so we always celebrated together, even planned to be baptized together. The baptism didn't work out though, because her dad was in the military and had to leave for an extended period of time, so they got permission to have her baptism before he left (she was already 8). Needless to say we were still really close and did everything together. We had a really close bond. After they moved from fairbanks to colorado springs, I worked for months babysitting to save up enough money to pay for a plane ticket to go see her. Her dad retired from the military and they moved back to fairbanks when we were in Jr. High. When I was 16 we moved to Utah, her family moved to Logan when we were 17. One day, right Before my 18th birthday, My mom was making me go to school, I didn't want to go. So instead of driving to school, I drove to Logan to see Jessica! Our life paths have crossed and gone apart over the past few years, with living far away from each other, different decisions we've made, etc. Until recently the last time we had physically seen each other was right after that time I drove up there. The three of us (Cynthia, Jessica, and I) were able to be "reunited" in October because Cynthia went through the Logan temple to receive her endowments. I'm not sure quite the the significance is of us being friends in this life, but I know there is one, because we have been there for each other for some pretty major things, but like I said earlier our paths cross in and out, we just happen to be there for each other when it really matters! Either way, I love them and am so glad I have them!
This is a picture of the three of us at the temple in October
My next best friend that I would like to mention, is Brittany. Her and I met the first day of kindergarten. I was feeling really sad and didn't want my mom to leave me, and I wanted her to retie my shoe. Then a sweet little girl came up and asked if she could teach me to tie my shoe. It was Brittany. She immediately made me feel at ease, and my mom was able to sneak out with out me noticing! Brittany and I have been best friends ever since! She has been an example to me in really hard times, when I should have been the example. She has such a kind heart and is so loving and accepting of everyone. I love her!
Here is a picture of us dressed up as nerds when we were 16 (we were so awesome)
My next best friend is someone who I wondered if I should share about or not. But it would feel wrong for me to leave her out. I just don't want it to sound like a sob story. So keep in mind that it is not that. Her name is Christina. We became friends our freshman year of high school. It was a time for both of us when we had kind of grown apart from our usual friends and we were both trying to figure out our new lives as high schoolers. I had known who she was from jr. high, and I was intimidated by her, she was beautiful, and popular. Somehow though, she wanted to be my friend! We quickly became close, through our classes we had together that year, and started hanging out outside of school a few months later. We had a lot of fun together.
A common topic of discussion for us was religion. We talked a lot about how I was mormon, and Joseph Smith, etc. She shared with me a lot about her beliefs, she was born into the Catholic church, had a Communion, etc, but didn't really go to church. She didn't like the idea of organized religion. She thought that anyone should have the right to be in God's good graces just by being a good person. Which she was right to an extent. We always had good positive conversations, no one ever felt wrong or judge when we talked.
During the school year, Christina had started to have seisures. She went to the dr for it and discovered she had a "knot" of blood vessels in her brain that caused her to develop epilepsy. It was a very worrisome condition because the siesures could cause those vessels to pop and cause an anurism. They considered operating but because if the location of the knot it was very risky, and they gave her a 50/50 chance of surviving the procedure. So they decided that they could control the seisures by medication, and everyone felt very comfortable with that.
Well, on the last day of school our freshman year, Christina and I had a slumber party at my house. We went to a late movie and she had forgotten to take her medicine. So after the movie, like at 1am we went over to her house to get her medicine. She took it and we thought everything would be fine. Once we got home we decided to watch our all time favorite movie, "Steel Magnolias". I fell asleep on the couch pretty much at the beginning of the movie, Christina stayed up and finished the movie, then went and crawled into my bed to go to sleep.
Sometime between 2am-9am, Christina had a siesure in her sleep and died. We don't know the order of events, but either before, after, or during the siesure we believe she had an anurism.
From the moment I realized what had happened I felt two things, one, that I thought I was going to die too. I felt so much pain that I thought at anytime that Heavenly Father was going to take me too. Two, That this was all happening for a reason. That It was Christina's time to go home, that we became friends for a specific purpose, and that that friendship would continue on in the eternities. I felt so much love from my Savior, and I knew it was Him who was offering it.
It took a long time to get over her death and to not feel that kind of pain on a daily basis anymore. But there was a time about a year or two later that I realized that Heavenly Father didn't take her away from me, that He made it possible for us to always be near each other. A year later I moved from Alaska to Utah, and there were times I felt very alone. All the friends I had grown up with, I was missing their graduations, they were missing mine, dances, etc. But I realized that day that Christina was able to be there with me for all of those special occasions in my life. She was there on my wedding day, for the birth of my children, etc. I think back on that day she died, and the surroundings she was in, in my bedroom, with mormon-ads on the walls, one saying "Be Your own Kind of Beautiful" something that she taught me during our friendship, "Eternity is a long time, take a friend with you, share the gospel message today" something that I was able to do for her, and then one about being married in the temple, I can't remember what it said specifically, but it was a girl looking into a mirror and seeing her temple wedding in the reflection, I had little quotes and momentos all around my room from Young Womens, and her head rested on my young women values pillow. I know our friendship prepared her for her death, and to be able to receive the gospel teaching on the other side. I will be forever grateful for that experience and I look forward to seeing her again and being able to continue our friendship in the eternities.
Here is a picture of us before going to freshman prom. Sorry, there has been some water damage.
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