20 Years Later and it Still Hurts

20 years ago I lost my belief that those I loved would always be with me.  Of course, I had already lost friends to just fading friendships, or moves, or something along those lines.  I had never attended a funeral, other than one of a camp friend's mom.  That was hard, but I didn't know her.  March 27th, 1994 I lost one of my very best friends.  The worst part, the part that still hurts so much, is that she took her own life.  She jumped off of the Galleria parking lot in our hometown of Dallas.   In the process of doing this she left behind hundreds of people who had to grieve her death.  The day of her death I had just returned to Lawrence where I was attending school.  The phone call came right after I put my suitcase in my room.  It was another high school  friend of ours and of course, I KNEW, she was wrong.  She could not be right, certainly because she was telling my that my silly, loving, devil on my shoulder, laughing friend was gone.  I walked for hours with my friends that evening.  The questions I asked myself that night are ones that never can be answered.  I do not really know why she did it.  I know theories or what was the tipping point, but I do not truly know why.  I know that she is still alive in me everytime I do something that I would not typically do or take a risk.  She is there when I can be carefree and laugh until I think I can not laugh anymore.  She is there when I think of books, ironically A Separate Peace being one of them.  She is there when I kiss my babies and hold them tight wanting to keep them safe and away from pain forever.