love is thick like blood, like honey

i just found something that i snuck into the library for last year.

"i love you. i love you more than you will ever know. remember that. remember i'm your one and only. remember you're a dancer - and you always will be. how could you not? you're my other self. remember you are the most amazing, incredible friend anyone could want. you give me so much. you have held me in so many ways. you never even knew it."

it's a quote from a book. my favorite of all the books ever written. it's the best one. and i found it and read it. and here is this quote.

it's called "a time for dancing" by davida wills hurwin.

i'm gonna give stuff away but read it anyway because it's worth it. and i can't possible convey the emotion and the perfection of the eloquence captured in that book in my simple summary.

so in the book these two girls are absolute best friends and they've been attached at the hip since they were kids and they both dance together and they love it and are so passionate. it's gorgeous. but then one of them gets cancer and has to go through chemo and stop dancing and her best friend has to deal with life without her for the first time because i mean she's there but she isn't there ya know so then at the end of the book the girl with cancer dies but she leaves a cassette tape for her best friend where she recorded herself saying all the things her other half would need to hear after she was gone. this quote was a part of that recording.
beauty.

this quote made me think about kayla.

i've been thinking about kayla a lot lately. i don't really know where it came from but one day i just got kinda hit in the face with this overwhelming thought of her. the summer before we started seventh grade she fell and broke her arm and it just wouldn't get better. the doctors said she had cancer. it was in her bones. the worst. she did the chemo thing and held on for a while but one day that february, april wasn't at school. somehow i knew. i didn't wanna believe it though so i just went through like i did suspect anything at all. april was probably just sick. people get sick. boy do they get sick. well that one day in february happened to be a wednesday. that wednesday i went to small groups with the people that i was most open with. after we prayed and everyone left, i lingered for a while. i waited until stacy kirkland was all mine. i couldn't bear to hand over my most vunerable and awkward time to more than just her. she saw that i'd stayed and asked what was up. i told her that i needed her to pray for me and with me and just be with me and let me talk or not talk. i just needed her right then. she told me i'd come to the right person because she couldn't imagine it being possible for anyone to be more willing than herself. so we sat on a couch and i told her that i thought my friend had died that day. she wrapped her arms around me for a moment then she took my hands and asked if i would pray with her right then. she offered to God all that was upon me at that moment. all that was upon her family and her friends. i could've prayed these very words to the same God we'd spoken to together that night, but i couldn't have really. i couldn't do it by myself. on the ride home, i got a phone call from april. i asked if she was sick. she said no. i asked if kayla was ok. then she told me that she'd died. it was just shaky silence. she told me details of the funeral and visitation. i half heartedly took them, trying to comprehend what had just happened. i suddenly had to deal with all that i'd been avoiding all day without her. i didn't cry for a while. i think i didn't fully understand what'd happened. and i guess in that sense understanding came and went for me. i would get really down and cry for a bit. then i would be ok and it would just be like acceptance. like i still knew it'd happened but i knew it was ok. then all of a sudden, it wouldn't be ok anymore. maybe the same thing just keeps happening but the length of time just kinda stretches out. maybe that's how it always happens.

so for a while i was just thinking about it. then sunday, the all state band played amazing grace. i didn't even like the arrangement of it but it's just that song i suppose. you could play it on a kazoo and it'd make an impact on somebody. and they made an impact. in that hot balcony listening to all the musicians who are so passionate about what they were on that stage doing that i could barely remember what it felt like, i just succombed to the music and the moment and the memory.
beauty.