It'll be alright again.

"For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity."

-William Penn

“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.” 

-Mitch Albom

"No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow."

 -Euripides

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” 

-J. K. Rowling

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” 

-Mitch Albom

“We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”  

-J. K. Rowling

“I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.” 

-Elizabeth Gilbert

 That last quote - that was one that my big sister hung on her wall since she was about 12 and I was 10. At least once a week, if not daily, she would text it to me, repeat it to me, something, to remind me she would always love me. I can't think of a time in my life she wouldn't tell me of that quote. It was her favorite. And what I held on to when she was in her comatose. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to protect me until I died. But rather I was her safe haven her last few moments.

The pulled the plugs on her life support system yesterday around 3pm. They held onto her until I was able to get home from the airport and was able to see her before they took her in to have her organs donated. Doctors, you know, they don't know everything. Sometimes it feels though they're treating a person as a bunch of parts. There were organ specialists and brain surgeons and neurological scientists around her as they took her away. Like they were going to dissect her one part at a time until there was nothing else to take from her carcass. 

I won't lie. It was traumatic. I didn't believe she was dead. How could I? It would destroy me. They took me into the room she was waiting in to say goodbye. I was alone, as the family had already had their time with her. I watched as her chest raised gently up and down, and her heart thumped gently beneath her skin. But I knew it was all fake. It was due to the wires, the machines, the medical ways to keep her organs functioning until she was truly dead. I weaved my hand into hers and kissed her cheek. Told her all the things I'd been holding back... reliving all the memories and telling her all the things that would be different without her. They sometimes say that people who come out of comas recall what was told to them during their coma. I like to think maybe she was listening to what I had to say. I combed through her hair with my fingers and rested my head on her chest like I always did when we would stay up late watching movies together. I cried.

It was about ten minutes I was in there until I was finally strong enough to pick myself up and walk away, not daring to look back. I went to her family in the waiting room, hugged and mourned with them for a few minutes. Then the doctors called that they were taking her into surgery if anyone wanted a final goodbye. Her family went in to watch them take her off of the machine, but I slipped out of the hospital, fast as I could, and ran home, tears filling my eyes to the brim that I could hardly see. 

I felt like I was watching myself in a movie, or having my life played out in a book.

 I've never had that close of an experience with someone I love dying. Sure, I've had plenty of friends die from cancer or such, but I'm never with them when they die... I never see them before they are taken off of life support. I've never dared to. I never wanted to, I never want to.

I'm not asking for sympathy. I know you think you understand, but everyone experience loss differently. This is my loss and you've had yours. I don't need to be comforted. I've accepted what happened and I'll be okay. I just needed to write it all down somewhere... where someone could read it, and experience it. I needed to let someone know what happened. So thank you, whoever might be reading this. Thank you for letting me heal.

It'll be alright again.

Erika

Ouch.

Ugh. You know, I don't mean to bring the world down. You know? But still. My heart hurts and I thought maybe here would be the place I could say something and not regret it. My best friend, my closest girl, my sister..... well, she's been in the hospital for a few weeks. She was in a car accident. It was raining, the streets were wet. She slipped up and crashed into a light pole. Head on. On the drivers side. I can't. I can't. The night I got that call I bawled, bawled. The call came around 1am. I don't think I slept at all that night. It was the night before Chris Young.

She's been in a coma since then, every day declining in health rapidly. The doctors and her parents agreed that if her heart stopped beating, they wouldn't want to revive her. It felt to me as though they were giving up on her. But you wonder, you know, if really, they would want to be revived, if they're doomed to a life of never being what they used to.

My baby girl was pronounced brain dead this morning at 4:23 am. I'm out of town, in a hotel room with my father. I can't cry. I can tell anyone how much I'm hurting. All I want to do is break down and I can't. I can't do that.

Maybe it's for the best. Maybe she's happy. But I'm not. I'm dying. I hurting like I've never hurt before. "It's like a death inside the family, like she stole my way to breathe."

Erika.

Drownded Rats.

Sometimes, stuff happens. Call it what you will. We all know what I'm talking about. And life happens. But sometimes that's okay (:

We've been out of town since Monday, my dad and I. We flew into Boston International and then drove an hour or so up to Portsmouth, NH. We drove along the coast through Maine a little bit, got some of the BEST ice cream IN THE WORLD in Kittery, ME. Checked into our hotel and spent the night on a private beach. We then drove down to Salem, MA and ate lunch at the Seaport Cafe. BEST Clam Chowder.... and I've had a lot of chowder (Chow - daaaaaa) in my life. Dad says I've always talked like I'm a mix between a Michigan Native and a New England Convert. Don't worry, I have no idea what that means either.

We then checked into our hotel in Boston, right on the waterfront. We went to the airport to return our rental car, since we didn't need it in Boston, and then took the water taxi back to our hotel. We went and ate dinner and desert in the lounge, watched AGT, and w ate breakfast, then stuck around our hotel until noon for the Blue Angels Air Show.. AWESOME. Saw the USS Constitution. Ate lunch down the street while the Angels were still flyinext we went down to the Museum of Science where our Duck Tour was departing from. We took an eighty minute tour, and it was SO great. Favorite part of the trip so far.

We came back for dinner at the lounge and then took a little nap because I was SOOO tired. We then went down to the Harbor (haaabaaaaar) to see the fireworks. We got up on the Lincoln Street Bridge and were there for about an hour when we were evacuated off the bridge because of lightning stroms. We then decided to go back to our hotel and just watch the fireworks on TV. We then found we could watch the fireworks from our hotel window, so we watched those with the music on the TV program in the background. It was SOO great. Right as the fireworks started, it began POURING rain. SOOO cool. I was glad we were inside, but after the fireworks I made my dad go outside with me to stand in it and smell it - Summer rain is the BEST.

We are moving on to CT and RI tomorrow. Then fly to GA on Sunday. Update you more later- Happy Birthday AMERICA!!!

Erika