Persevering Paige

In 2 days, it will be exactly two years since my best friend lost her battle with cancer. I logged onto Facebook this morning, and was reminded of this memory I shared last year. I decided to share it on my blog this year. It read:

“I would like to make Good Friday a Great Friday by sharing a great memory. 
One afternoon last November, Reagan and I were in town getting a few things at Dollar Tree. We drove separately. Reagan had gotten there first and walked over to my car once she saw me pull into a parking spot. I got out and said, “Does my tire look flat to you??” Reagan responded how any teen girl would, “I don’t know!” I told her how it had felt weird driving over here. 
As we finished shopping and walked out the door, I asked Reagan if she would go with me to put air in my tire because I wasn’t really sure how to do it. She said sure. She got in my passenger seat and we rode over to the shell station. I parked close to the air machine and got out. I walked over to the air pump, and I said, “Reagan! It’s going to be 75 cents! Can you look in my car and see if you can find it in the change box?” She found it and handed it to me. I put the quarters into the machine, and it turned on. It was very loud, a lot louder than I expected. I grabbed the cord and walked over to the tire and pulled the cap off that was on the tire. I put the cord from the air machine where I had taken the cap off on my tire and said, “Is it on right?!” Reagan got out of the car and said, “It looks like it’s on right.” She looked at me bending over and began laughing. I looked at her and started laughing too. I replied, “It doesn’t look like my tire is getting any bigger…” Reagan dropped her crutches and knelt down beside me and then began to start laughing again, because people driving by were staring at 2 teenage girls on their hands and knees trying to get air in a tire that clearly have no idea what they’re doing—funny right. I said, “Seriously, it is going to time out, and I am scared to drive home on tire with low air!!” We are practically yelling at each other because the air machine was so loud. Reagan said, “Let me try!” She tried to put it on my tire and left it on for a few seconds and then I said, “Okay take it off!! I don’t want my tire to explode, what if it is too full?! How do I know? I don’t think I have one of those tire pressure things in here…” Reagan looked at me confused. I then began walking around my car looking at all of my other 3 tires, to compare the sizes of them to the one I was trying to fill. I said, “Okay now this tire looks too big!” Reagan began laughing hysterically and so did I. Meanwhile the machine is still going in the background. “RRRRRRRRRR.” I said, “Ugh let’s just forget it!” I put the cap back on my tire and we drove off. 
I miss my best friend, but most of all what I miss is the pain in my stomach that I would get from laughing so hard. I now have pain in my heart from life without you. I know you’re in a much better place, (at least one of us 2 friends got there) and I’m just going through the motions. Some days are easier than others. I miss you, and our moments. I know a part of you is always here with me, nevertheless, I miss our moments.”
….I miss our moments still. I miss them more than anything. Oh what I would give to just re-live them one more time. It’s almost been two years since you died, and I tell myself, “I may not be where I’d like to be, but I’m not where I used to be.” It’s tough, because I live in the world of is and not the world of ought. The world of ‘is’ allows me to admit that I miss our moments. 

My best writing comes late at night, when the early hours of the morning are upon us. Sometimes I get urges to write meaningless words, fragments of moments that I want to taste for a little while. So I shall.

The pink carpet, a few white pillows on the floor. Some parts of it, you can pick out specific strings of the carpet, they don’t look like a part of the rest. The sun comes in through the window, and it hits the pink carpet leaving a brighter, gold version of it in the moment for a little while. The curtains are pulled back just the right way, and the vacuum sits upright, angled. Your dark jeans, sneakers, and blonde hair pulled back in a clip with brown spurts showing become a part of the room majestically. Your passion for this one room, you never let anyone in it because you said it was the only room you could keep clean. The rest of the house didn’t matter, we were free to mess it up.

You always wore sneakers in that room, even when you were cleaning it. I never understood that, but I loved it. 

You’d do your thing without interruption, and sometimes I’d just watch you and think how one day I want to be as beautiful as you. The air was pure and life was full, I sure do miss you.

This blog post is meant for my little sister, Danielle. In a few short months she will be graduating high school…and there’s just a few things I want to say.

First and foremost, I am proud of you. I am so proud of you. More importantly, Mom and Dad are so proud of you. Since they aren’t physically here to tell you that, as your big sister, I get the credibility to do so. You have overcome so much, and although things have been complex and messy at times, you’re about to truly spread your wings and enter into the real world. I couldn’t be happier or more excited for you, and neither can they!

Life after high school is tough for everyone, especially those in our situation, and I hope there are few. As you already know, life growing up in high school with no living parents is extremely difficult. I am sure that you have also most likely come to the realization that life as a young adult without your parents will be just as difficult. I won’t lie to you, it will be, but in a new way. However, I want you to know that you have so many people that love you alongside something that I didn’t have as a senior about to graduate; a big sister that has been through the same thing herself just a few short years ago. I will do anything and everything I can to help you, whether it be guidance, advice, maybe you need help buying something, homework, a friend…whatever it may be, I’m already there.

There is so much pressure in the world, from society, ourselves, family, friends–to know exactly what you want to be and to know exactly what you want to do. It is almost as if there is a socially constructed invisible law that all of the world has subconsciously agreed to that says one must know, or pretend to know, exactly what they want to do or be at this very moment. My advice? Don’t fall into that. Part of being a young adult is finding your way, and your path isn’t set in stone, even when you think it is. At your age, everything is constantly changing, so embrace it, and try not to be too hard on yourself.

Speaking of paths, they say that everyone has a path in life, which is true. Often times, we will compare our path to someone else’s. As soon as we do that, we have failed the beauty of our own path. Your path is unique and special for you. It is tempting to look at someone else’s path and be in awe of what they have, and it is okay to be in awe sometimes–just remember to be in awe of your own path too. Don’t compare it to anyone else’s, because it is no one else’s path. It is your own. I have found that focusing on wishing someone else’s path in life were my own can be a major setback. I once saw a quote that said, “The key to success in life is playing the cards you were dealt like they were the cards you wanted.” Seriously, that could not be more true.

There is a lot of change that follows graduating high school. It’s okay to be scared. You may find yourself one day, sitting by a window…reflecting, questioning, pondering, and having the feel of, “now what?” That’s normal and part of starting to move forward with your life. Pick up the phone and call your sister if that feeling is ever overwhelming.

Whatever you choose to do, whether it’s college, take a year off, trade school, whatever it may be- you will take hard classes, you will have hard days at work, and they will make you feel unintelligent, incapable, and frustrated. You have to go through hard classes to get to the endpoint, and hard days will find you no matter where you are in life. Please don’t ever believe you are unintelligent or incapable. You are far from that. You are beautifully and wonderfully made, and you are capable of every opportunity in this world.

Sometimes you will fail, but you cannot, under any circumstance, give up. If you walk, or crawl, you’re still moving forward.

Some days, you will feel like you aren’t doing anything with your life. In the first year after I graduated, I felt that way more times than I can count. Things take time, and we are impatient. Good careers, good salaries…they all take time. Don’t give up and stay patient. Also…never forget to, on your hardest days, take a step back and remember how far you have come. Graduating high school is a big accomplishment. It took a long time to achieve that, and you should be so proud of yourself. Too many times society tries to rush high school graduates into the next step and doesn’t give them time to marvel at how far they have come…don’t be afraid to take that time. In fact, don’t be afraid to take any time, ever. Taking the scenic route is okay.

When it comes to being successful, remember that everyone measures success differently. Some measure success by how much money they have in the bank, while others measure success around how kind they were that day. So, don’t worry about whose version of success you fit under.

You know what is best for you. You are you, nobody else is you. Nobody else has the power to know what is best for you, because no on else has lived your life, feels what you feel, and has been through what you have been through. Loved ones can offer suggestions and listening to others is always okay, but you can choose to discard of the opinions’ that don’t make you happy. Always listen to yourself-you may even hear Mom.

In my life, guiltily, I have felt invincible. At all we have been through at such a young age, I mean, how could we not? The biggest lesson to come from that feeling is—-be not afraid to ask for help. Although we may feel invincible at times, we are not, we are human, and help is okay.

You will have days where you cry and question everything, know that I have them too, so did Mom, so did Dad. Though you will have these days, you will also have great days. Life comes in waves. I truly do believe that the best is yet to come. I feel that all of us will flourish as adults. A trying childhood paves the way for nothing less than adult years full of happiness, blessings, and prosperity. Try not to lose sight of that.

I do apologize for my incoherent rambling. I hope you were able to get a little something from it. Remember that no matter where you go, or what you do, you will always have that little voice inside of you that is a light in the darkness of your life, that is Mom and Dad. And know that you always have a big sister that loves you more than anything.

This isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. Mom raised us to be strong women…now go out there and continue to make her proud…

I thought I’d leave you with a Mom quote. One of my favorites.

“Make sure you find someone that loves you a little bit more than you love him, that way, you’ll never get hurt.” -Our Mama

“The function of a man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them, I shall use my time.”-Jack London

It is night and my mind is beginning to wander, and the first thing that happens, of course, is that I start missing you. I am still so numb to the fact that you are no longer gracing the Earth with your presence. It is an absolute tragedy how one person can make your life so…full of life and once they are gone, it is gray and, colorless. 

I always think about Heaven, after all it is our true home. I think of you and Heaven and how you must be so happy. I remember you telling me that if you could meet any 3 people that it would’ve been Jack London, Johnny Cash, and admittedly, I forget the third. I imagine you’ve probably met them by now, perhaps you’re even good friends with Mr.London and Mr.Cash. When I thought about that, I thought about how amazing that is, the way that in Heaven you can meet and befriend anybody. You can be friends with souls that existed long before you, because it doesn’t matter if you were alive during the same century, in Heaven you aren’t bound by Earthly time. With that being said, I can see why Heaven is the ultimate place to be, the place of eternal happiness. Your friend pool is probably a lot more interesting than mine.

There will be more posts to come. I just wanted to share that revelation I had/tonight’s thoughts. 

Ps) I feel really honored that I exitsted the same century as you, that God allowed our lives to overlap for the short amount of time that they did. I won’t have to wait to get to Heaven to meet someone that seems too good to be true. I’ll just have to wait for Heaven to experience that again. Granted, you were too good to be true. I often thought to myself after talking to you/visiting with you “this is too good to be true, to have someone like my uncle”. You were too good to be true for this Earth, I felt it all along, however you were true, and I’m grateful. 

I am often asked, why even after everything I have been through, how I still have faith. You can’t blame people (family, friends, or even acquaintances) for asking, it’s a good question. If someone were to ask me that on the spot, I would give a simple answer like, “I just do” or “I don’t know”, when in reality, there isn’t just one set answer to that question. The answer is a combination of many things that all connects to the person I am.

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”-Hebrews 11:1

How do I still have faith after everything I have been through, one asks? I guess I would pose the opposite question back. How could I not?

The goal of this post is far from trying to convince whoever reading that they should feel the same way I do about faith as they go through their struggles, or that I am right and they are wrong. Yes, I wish they would, only because I want everyone to experience how awesome the faith journey is. However, the goal of this is just to put into words why I personally have chosen to keep my faith and grow stronger in it throughout everything I have been through, and hope that maybe someone, somewhere, will get something out of it. Faith is a personal journey and as you know, we do have a choice. We have a choice whether to have faith or to not have faith. I cannot speak for much, I can simply tell you that as someone who has suffered greatly at a young age, and also as someone who has throughout her life both had faith and stopped practicing my faith, I am a much happier person having faith than not. I mean mentally, spiritually, etc.

Look at my life and only my life. Imagine if I had gone through my life thus far without faith. Imagine. Think about losing both of your parents before high school without faith to guide you, losing your childhood best friend senior year two months before graduation with no faith, losing your closest uncle and father figure your first year of college with no faith, and day to day life years after lacking faith. It is scary to think about. To think that I would never see my parents and best friend again. To think about my mental state and progress coping feeling that way.

There have been more negative things said about faith, religion, and its teachings than anything in the world. There’s no way that more negative things have been said about faith than the recent election, right? In the words of the president-elect himself, “Wrong.” More people have criticized, condemned, and even completely denounced faith than anything, including the election and any sports team. It seems impossible but makes sense considering faith is much greater than the human mind is able to grasp, leaving a gray area and many questions unanswered.

If God loves me, then why did my mother die on my birthday at age 14? Why did my closest friend die at only age 18? Why did I only get 7 years with my father and 19 years with my uncle? If God is so loving, why do people go to Hell? Those are just a few things I have heard, thought, and seen on social media throughout my 19 almost 20 years of life. Looking back over the history of the world the last 2,000 years-more people have died due to religion than we are even able to count. Religion has started a lot of controversy, which I am sure only adds to the negativity being said about faith. I do wish so deeply, more than I could ever express, that I could plug in a formula and get the exact answer as to why all of these things happened to me/others/the world, but obviously I cannot. Life is not a math problem with one correct answer to every problem. It is rather much deeper than most of us are ever able to figure out. That is why I have always related more to literature, writing, reading, and english class than math. I am a deep thinker. That is also why I have connected to Faith.

Throughout my life, I have felt angry at God. I have felt that my faith had failed me and that there was no way I would make it. Often times we face hardship and think “How could God do this to me?”, but God is not mean, he is merciful and never abandons us. The world doesn’t owe us anything. It was here long before us and it will be here long after us. When we feel despair in the form of “How could God do this to me?”, we are looking at the situation in the wrong light. I have so much goodness in my life, that the world didn’t have to give me and that is because of God. His plan is different than ours at times. As a kid, we would ask our parents for things and be told no. We would scream and cry, and feel angry at them, but they told us no because they knew what was best. God knows what is best for us and we must not forget that.

Faith isn’t something I have because I am scared of the alternative, or something I am forced to have. I have faith because throughout all that I have been through, my faith is the only thing that has helped me see clearly. It is the only thing that has helped me to keep my head above water and not drown in the burdens of life. When I go to the Lord with my struggles, he takes them from me and cleanses my heart. Truly, God is the only one that has never left me.

I read in an article, something very powerful. It said, “Faith can be disappointing, at least in the heart of difficulties and uncertainties. If you believe nothing else about faith, believe that it is the hardest thing to hold onto when you need it the most. Paradoxically, as it’s been said, faith isn’t faith until it’s all you’re holding onto. And sometimes, you’ll even think it is lost. You’ll think that you have failed and whatever battle you were fighting has come to an end; you’ll think that you have been defeated. You’ll think that your faith has failed you. I can’t speak for anyone else, but if there’s anything I know at all, it is that my faith has never failed me. In the scorecard of life, I may have lost more than I have won in all of the things that I have attempted. But I have always felt like a victor when challenges have come to pass, because even when I have lost something I worked hard for, and suffered through, and believed in my heart of hearts that I would get, I have found that what was prepared for me was something so much greater than I could have imagined.”-Kovie Biakolo

I have seen too many miracles in my short life to believe that life on Earth is the end, that this is all there is. There is so much more. I will share just one personal story with you.

It was a cold, cloudy mid-December afternoon in 2010. I was 13. My grandmother and I had just gotten back from the grocery store. My mother was terminally ill with breast cancer and would pass any day. She could no longer speak to me, move, or even hear the same. My grandmother was in the kitchen putting groceries away and I had gone into my Mom’s room to check on her. She looked at me and said, “Paige?” I said, “Yes mom?” She said, “Is Tommy here?” Tears began to form in my eyes as Tommy was my Dad who had passed away years ago. I said, “No mom he isn’t, why?” She looked to her window and said, “I see him waiting for me.”

Faith is being vulnerable to the idea that we are being guided in life to our true destiny and that there is so much more than this life. That’s why I am so thankful for my faith, because it has given me so much more. Faith exceeds Earthly time, space, and comprehension. I can’t wait to hug my Mom again but until then, I am down for the ride with my Heavenly Father that knows best.

Tomorrow is my first trip to the Verizon Center without you here on this Earth. Tomorrow is also my first trip to the Verizon Center for a Caps playoff game. I have made many trips to the Verizon Center, but never without you here on this Earth, and never for a playoff game.

I am sure it will be a much more hectic atmosphere, due to it being a playoff game. I have so much adrenaline, and I am so excited. I haven’t been able to sleep or sit still because all I can think about is tomorrow night. I can’t wait to watch the first game of the 2016 playoffs from the stands of my favorite place-the Verizon Center.

I know a part of me may get emotional, knowing that you and I made many trips to the VC together. I will probably look around, reminiscing about our times together there, and tears will stream down my cheek. You’re the first person I would’ve asked to go with me to the game, and I won’t even be able to text you about the game. However, you will be there. I am bringing one of your old Skoal cans and putting it in my back pocket so that a piece of you will be there with me. 

But most of all, I am going for you and because of you. It was because of you that I even managed to get tickets to such a precious game-their first playoff game. One of your former co-workers bought me tickets to the game. As long as I am breathing and able to attend Caps games, you will be there, because you are in my heart and when I am screaming “Let’s Go Caps!” or clapping and standing up excitedly for a player that just scored a goal, you are in that. 

Tomorrow will be fun. Tomorrow will be sad. Tomorrow will be the Caps first playoff win of the year.  

 I have decided to do something a little different this playoff season for the Washington Capitals. For each goal Caps Captain, Alex Ovechkin, scores in the quarterfinal round of the NHL playoffs-I will donate $5.00 to St.Jude’s. 

If you would like to join in with me on this, that would be ahh-mazing!! Let’s get a chain going! 

St.Jude’s provides treatment, housing, care, and so much more to families of children fighting cancer at no cost to them. Families whose children are under the care of St.Jude’s never receive one bill for anything. The way it should be!! Saving their child should be their ONLY concern, not financial stress of “How are we going to pay all of these hospital bills?” 

As someone who lost her Mom to breast cancer at age 14 (my Mom was only 41), and who lost her best friend since early childhood to Euwing’s Sarcoma Bone Cancer at age 18—I know how important it is to put the care of patients over ANYTHING else. I can remember seeing bills for my Mom’s treatments on the counters and thinking to myself at age 14,”That must be expensive..” 

St.Jude’s is such a phenomenal organization and that is why I have started to donate monthly as well as set up a personal fundraising page.

So please, Caps fans, friends, join me in this quest to end cancer and relieve families going through it of as much stress as we can. 

💗💗💕 ~ 

(I will post the link to my personal fundraising page for St.Jude’s and if you would like to donate in my name I would be forever grateful. Also, I will do another blog post with the total number of goals for Ovi in round 1! Thank you so much and much love!) 

Paige’s St.Jude Personal Fundraiser
 

My least favorite thing of all time that has been said to me while grieving (and honestly, there are so many things, I could write a book on this topic alone) is, “But you have so many people that love you…” There are good intentions there, and it is obvious that whoever said it had their heart in the right place, but it can be taken hurtfully depending on the individual that it was said to. For me, I am hurt by that. I want to say in response something like, “Yes, that may be true, but all of the closest ones to me, the ones that I actually talked to on a daily basis and not just on holidays, have died.” 

Another one that also gets me is, “Everyone goes eventually.” While that is  a true statement, not everyone goes at ages like 41 and 18, the ages that my loved ones died. When you say that to me, it feels like you are down-playing my hurt with a factual statement that doesn’t go into far enough depth to even make sense connecting with what I am dealing with. Everyone dies eventually, but not at such a young age with so much life ahead of them. Not when their journey on Earth isn’t close to being over. Not when they have so many milestones to see and memories to make, and some of those, with me.

The thing about grief is that when someone is in it, everyone’s heart hurts watching it. Everyone wants to do something to help, and the act of “saying” is the easiest step to feeling like you have ‘done’ something. But when it comes to a sensitive topic such as grief, one must be overly careful with what they say. Sometimes it is better to not say anything at all, because something that is meant to be taken nicely, in an emotional time can be mistaken to be hurtful. Sometimes it is better to just listen, because it is only in grief where there is absolutely nothing to say. 

However, if you feel like you must say something, you must keep in mind that everyone is different, each person is unique and special in their own way, and that is a very important thing, especially in grief. Throughout my experiences with grief, and there have been many, I have found for me that things like,” I am here for you” and “You are courageous” and “Think about everything you know about them and try to live and love the best that you can for them, the way they taught you” are the best kinds of things to say, if you have to say something.

Simple is more in grief. A smile goes a longer way than normal for a person in deep grief, because not everyone prefers or likes to be hugged during a difficult time. A careful recipe for thoughts and words must be followed in order for the nearest to perfect outcome. 

  
    
   
~photos all taken by me, Paige Hockman~

You wouldn’t have to talk to many people to find out that I am one of the biggest Caps fans you’ll ever meet. Or should I say used to be.

The story of how I became a Caps fan is long, but I will shorten it by saying that watching the games was a safe place for me to go to escape all of the problems going on in my life that I didn’t want to face. Since then, I have leaned on the Caps for a lot, and formed many bonds through the simple activity of watching hockey. 

My best friend, Reagan, and I watched games together all of the time. We even attended one together when we were in 8th grade. We were hockey buddies at the finest. My bestie and hockey buddy died our senior year from Euwings Sarcoma bone cancer that she had been fighting since July of 2008. Although watching games post this tragedy was hard, it was not to worry, I had another and equally amazing hockey buddy, my Uncle Semin. 

After losing both of my parents, I eventually moved in with my Mom’s sister and her husband-my Aunt and Uncle more easily put. My uncle knew how much I loved hockey and had watched games before and so through hockey, my relationship with my uncle grew into something it never was before, he became one of my greatest friends. We began to watch the games together every night. My uncle and I went to many games together as well; he was even at the game that I attended with my friend Reagan. My uncle caught on to the “hockey lingo” and texted me things about the players in the middle of the day using their nicknames. I felt like my love of something that was so rare in the area was finally understood by someone else. We went through all of the losing seasons, winning seasons, devastating playoff eliminations, and glorious playoff wins together. 

… A little over a month ago, my uncle and greatest friend also passed away tragically and unexpectedly.

Just like that both of my hockey buddies were gone.

I have no words for how hurt this makes me feel.

The one thing that brought me so much happiness in my life, has now become painful. 

   
People have told me that I need to continue to watch the games, because someone has to carry on the love of the Caps, and it has to be me since I have been a fan for so long. 

Maybe that day will come. Hopefully it will.

However, right now it is just too hard and too soon…

-A fan

At different times in our lives, we feel that certain things would help us out. Lately I have been thinking a lot about what could help me out. I will admit, it is a day to day process. Some days I think a big tub of chocolate ice cream would do the trick, and some days I feel like I’ve got it all under control. However, some days come around and grab you by the throat. These are the days that the minute your feet hit the floor in the morning, you know it’s going to be a hard day-nonetheless you are still thankful for it, you did wake up after all. 

Anyway, I am a huge fan of ‘The Fault in Our Stars’. It’s a movie that really hit home for me for about 5 million different yet equal reasons to be truthful. I didn’t watch it when it first came out but my best friend had fallen madly in love with the movie and insisted that I watch it-so I did. I didn’t watch it because I wanted to. I originally boycotted it because I thought it would be too sad, and I thought I had had my fair share of sadness. When I did watch it, it was for the sole purpose of making my friend happy, because she wanted me to see it more than anything. She told me that she wanted me to watch it because she thought that by watching it, I would be able to as fully as possible understand what she was going through. She was battling cancer herself. They say that timing is everything, and coincidentally, we were both 18-the exact ages of Hazel and Gus! 

I had many things happen to me post watching it. My first reaction to the movie was, tears, obviously. My second thought, was, “How did he do this?” It was put together so well and eloquently, and as someone with the hope of publishing my own book one day, I wanted to know just how you did it. After watching the movie though, I began to feel that I better understood my friend, and I wanted to thank you for that. That seriously meant the world to me. What meant the most, though, is how much we bonded over it, and how much going back and watching it/thinking about it has helped me since my best friend has been gone. It has made me sad in doing that as well, just as one can imagine, but reading some of the amazing quotes has made my soul feel squeezed in times of such sadness. 

I want to share my favorite pieces of the book.

1) My first and foremost favorite part is when Isaac is at the podium telling Augustus what he will say at his funeral. Isaac had eye cancer, retinoblastoma (I believe) and was blind due to surgery. He said, “And when the scientists of the future show up at my house with their robot eyes and tell me to try them on, I will tell them to screw off because I don’t want to see. I don’t ever want to see a world without Augustus Waters.” Nothing, and I literally mean nothing, more accurately describes how I feel about my friend. People overuse the world ‘literally’ nowadays but I mean that.

2) The Augustus Waters quote of, “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up my friend.” I am in love that more than words can begin to describe. It has given me my mentality for my hardest days. I try to think like that-it’s inspirational.

3) When Augustus writes the letter to Peter Van Houten. My favorite line was, “I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer.” Perfection.

And 4) When Hazel is talking about Augustus’s death and says, “It was unbearable. The whole thing. Every second was worse than the last.” Reading that, I feel like someone jumped into my heart on April 8th and wrote down my heartbeat…because I’m pretty sure instead of those lines, it would’ve said that.

I also fell in love with Augustus’s character, and how he was the hope of the story, and if there were to ever be a real life Augustus Waters, I know he would give hope to the world. The way he talked about Hazel, and the way he looked at her were to die for. Judging by how hard I fell in love with Augustus Waters, maybe that is some of the reason behind why I became her Augustus Waters. Seriously, my best friend and I dressed up like Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters for Halloween. Okay, admittedly, she had her costume first and mine was decided/thought of days later-but either way, I think it’s pretty cute.  

 
I love everything about this picture as much as I love your book. (It is almost as if I make a better looking Augutus than I do my real self, Paige.)

I guess the purpose of this piece of writing was to say that since I do make a very good looking Augustus Waters, if I were actually Augustus Waters, I would have used my Make-A-Wish wish on you making a TFIOS 2. I am in no way suggesting that due to how the story ended, that there should be a sequel, I just think that it would be nice to read, and I would be a huge fan. Not to see Hazel fall in love with someone else. I was thinking more along the lines of Hazel dealing with Augustus’ death & maybe she’s in community college like me. It would just be nice to see how she puts her life back together after losing her best friend. Although, even with the tragic ending, it almost ended ‘just right’, if that makes sense at all. 

I guess that is just some food for thought. Thank you John Green for writing that book. I will forever keep returning to the words in its pages to give me strength, both in life and as a writer.

2015 taught me that there were a lot of “supposed to’s” that didn’t happen. I was supposed to graduate high school with my best friend right there, physically by my side. Things were a little different. I was supposed to go off to a 4 year school, love it, and be doing great things for myself and my career as well as making a ton of friends-I ended up coming home and am at community college. 2015 taught me to look at the positives and to keep going. It also taught me that whether it be significant others, friends…that some people can stay in your heart, but not in your life. I am stronger after living my 2015 than I was before. By coming home I was able to get a job that I love and look forward to going to every day, and I am still able to go to school without being in any student debt. Absolutely none. I think though that the greatest message I got from 2015, was that no matter what, seriously, no matter what, you will always be okay. So thank you 2015. Shoutout to you for bringing me this side of myself & my life.

I recently wrote a thank you note to my counselor at Meredith College, and I wanted to share it because I feel like it is not only meaningful, but it says a lot, and it is so bright. Enjoy~

Mrs.Meier,

There is nothing quite as beautiful as people in the world that understand exactly what you are going through, and can be a listening ear, helping hand, and friend throughout your struggle.  That is what I strive to be for my next door neighbors. 

I got on Facebook the other night, and this was my neighbor’s post. It is written so beautifully, and tells the story better than I ever could. It spoke to me, and hit home for me in many ways. 

A year ago, Melyssa’s husband David took his life-leaving Melyssa as a single Mom, and her 3 boys without a father. Melyssa, having battled cancer, aligns their life almost directly to mine, which is why I feel so connected to them and as if I can make a difference in their lives during their grief. 

I have had conversations with Melyssa, and I often watch her boys. Some things in life are not coincidental, and living right next door to my neighbors, is one of those things.

If you would like to read Melyssa’s Facebook post, it is below…and always know that you are loved.

  
  The youngest of the boys, Lane. Sorry I look so gross, this was taken by Luke (the middle one) after my 20 minute run.