A/N. Today, she died. Possibly one of the most wonderful people on the planet, gone forever. It isn't right, and it isn't fair. She had her problems, like everybody, but she had more to live for than almost anyone I know, including me. Did you know she was one of the two oboe players accepted into the Marine Corps band? The best two people in the whole USA were picked, and she was one of them! She was the best of the best, and now she's gone. Just... gone. I don't know what to do with myself, because it all seems like a cruel joke. It isn't fair.
It isn't enough, to say that I'm sorry. It isn't enough to wish that she and I had swapped places. The problem is that nothing is enough. I can't do anything, anything, to bring her back, no matter how much I wish to. And there don't seem to be words that could possibly describe what I feel about it, let alone anyone else.
But that's what I do. I find words. They may not be the right ones, or even the wrong ones, because words are just words after all. Everyone says that it is the actions that are important, not the words. But I feel helpless. Helpless because nothing will ever be enough to bring her back to us. Actions don't help me, and they don't help her, so I turn to words. Words don't help either, but it isn't so bad this way. It isn't so bad because, just like the emotions that never seem to stop, words are immaterial. They do nothing. Feelings do nothing. Wishes do nothing. But that's all I have: nothing. And this is all I can do to express it.
She wasn't someone that you could just be friends with. She was much more. When I looked at her, I didn't see just my friend. I saw someone who was a teacher, a fighter, a defender, a comedian, a prodigy, a veteran, a mentor, and a million other things that I cannot begin to list. Like the color yellow, she clashed with some people. And yet somehow, she made the world of everyone a little bit brighter in a way that was hers, and hers alone. And in the end, she outshone them all. Because she loved us just as much as she hated us, and that's saying a lot. She was never afraid to yell at us, no matter the distance, as to whether or not we made her proud, or were transforming what should have been music into cacophony. There were no boundaries to the way in which she expressed her love, which was to try to improve us. At one point, I asked her why she did so. Weren't we good enough for her just the way we were? She told me (quite frankly) that we sucked, but if she didn't love that little bit of us that was good, she wouldn't have tried so hard to fix us.
And she was right. We did suck. But every time I felt bad about it, I would remember what she had said to me, and I would remember a moment where we had done well. And I would smile.
She would tell me every day that she loved me just as much as she hated me, which was saying a lot. I love her back just as much. We all do.
I love you Heidi.