we need people {love}

i sat across the table from one of my best friends in the world tonight and held back tears {even though i'm pretty sure she saw them in my eyes} because if she wasn't losing it, i wasn't going to. this is happening to her. her mom is sick. her family is hurting. her world is changing. and if she could sit across from me and pour out her heart and not cry, i was going to be the strongest friend in the world for a few minutes and not cry either.

until now. now she's not here. now i'm crying. if i could take this from her, i would. my relationship with her was born out of tragedy. i knew who she was. we had met a few times. and then tragedy hit and from that, we became friends and then family. maybe it's that part of our friendship that makes this so hard for me to watch. more tragedy? and this? her mom - the closest thing to an angel on earth? doesn't seem fair. doesn't seem right.

when we talked tonight, she just kept talking about how overwhelmed she was with the love and support from the people in her life. it took me back to my own tragedy in 2004 which i remember little of except the support and love from the people around me. i have a bag full of cards that i received during my recuperation and every once in awhile, i get them out and have a good cry. and even though i was young, i remember very well when my dad had a heart attack and open heart surgery. different ladies from church brought food to our family, moms from around the neighborhood helped shuffle us around.

we need people.

we need people to enjoy sunshine with and people to walk through storms with. we need people for the moments that seem unfair. and we need people for the moments of indescribable joy.

we need people.

i remember being in a night class in college and getting that phone call. i left class and literally ran to the dorm where all of my friends were sitting in a room around one of my first friends in college who had just gotten the call that her dad died. i remember standing outside at my friend kevin's house with a hundred or so other people sharing stories and memories of him, crying and hugging. i remember being in my best friend's living room with her family and friends the night she got engaged and celebrating and taking pictures. i remember every day i spent with hope in the nicu. i remember my friend coming to my house late at night with two dozen roses and a listening ear when the end of a relationship devastated me. i remember the phone call at midnight when my best friend of twenty plus years was spending her last night at her parents before her wedding the next day and she just needed to cry because she was going to miss them. i remember having lunch with a friend who i hadn't seen in three years and crying with her about her dad's sudden passing. i remember celebrating with my friends when one passed the bar. i remember the "we're engaged!" phone calls, the "we broke up" phone calls, the "i lost my job"phone calls, the "they said it's cancer"phone calls, the "we're expecting!" phone calls, and the "we have some bad news" phone calls.

we need people.

in a way, my heart is heavy tonight and yet it's light. heavy that someone i care so deeply about is hurting yet hearing that people are encouraging her makes me smile. because life happens. accomplishments are met, jobs are lost, babies are born, parents pass on, houses foreclose, businesses start, birthdays pass by, spouses get sick, children get married, and we get old.

and life is much easier {easier to enjoy and easier to bear} with people in it.

we need people.

<3