steffen

Today is the six year anniversary of my precious friend Steffen's death. Six years. I still remember that day like it was yesterday, i remember what I was wearing and what I ate, I remember every part of the emotions involved in the phone call I got and the events that took place afterwards. Six years. That's a big chunk of time, and a lot of life that has continued to happen even though his life was cut too short.

Today, I have been thinking a lot about time and how the world continues on even though for some people it stops due to unfair circumstances. Those who continue on, keep learning and growing and carrying the people who have left in their hearts and in their actions.

Six years ago, I was 18 and about to leave for my freshman year of college, with the goal of being a therapist for troubled teenage girls. Now here I am 24, back in college and headed toward being an elementary school teacher. I didn't understand life and relationships and pain, because up until that point I had been spared the really hard stuff. Steffen's death was a turning point, it caused a lot of pain but in that God pulled a lot of beauty out of it. I began to understand who God was in the midst of tragedy and what it meant to be angry. I learned that sometimes life really sucks and that's okay. I also learned how fragile it is, how you never know what the next day holds and although time after time I fall extremely short of this, I want to experience each day entirely and love to the fullest possible capacity. In the last six years there has been a lot of laughter, a lot of beautiful memories, a lot of tears and struggles, relationships that have come and gone and ones that have lasted but most importantly there has been growth and experience. I am a stranger to who I was at 18 and I am grateful for that, I am grateful for what I have learned and what I have gone through, and although my 18 year old self had something completely different in mind for 24, I am glad to be right here where I am at, in my perfect little apartment in Pasadena, walking through life with the most beautiful people.

Steffen, thank you for being a part of my story, for being my first crush and the first boy I danced with at my very first junior high dance. Thank you for making that flower nursery one of the best jobs I will ever have and most importantly thank you for always being strong in being exactly who you were. I hope heaven is treating you well, and that you have The Beatles playing constantly up there.