As you all know one of my best friends passed away on Sunday.  I have tried many times to write this post and I have never been able to get words down on the screen.  I have really struggled with this because it was such a shock to me.  I was orginally going to write about what I love about her but I have decided that I am going to write a letter to her so that I can tell her everything that I never got a chance to do while she was alive.

* I am not going to get into what happened and other things that are going on as a result.   I know Melissa would want me to keep living and let go of anger and hate.

Dear Melissa,

I miss you more and more everyday.  I wish that you would have called me and let me know you were so down so that I could have helped you.  I am writing this because I want to tell you and all my readers what I learned from you in the short time I knew you.

• I learned how to be a better writer.  You wrote posts that made people think and I hope that one day I can become as good as a writer as you were.  Every post you wrote for my blog and even your own blog made me think and contemplate things in my own life.  It takes an amazing writer to make people realize that they need to make changes in their lives just because of something you wrote.
• I learned not to ever let people treat me bad.  I saw what happened to you and I refused to let people do that to me.  I show the toll it took on her and I don’t ever want people to control me.
• I also learned that admitting you have a mental illness is nothing you need to hide.  It was great to see that I can blog about things and there are people out there that won’t judge me and will understand.   You are part of the reason I wrote my adoption story and started to post things that make me vulnerable.  I guess I hope one day I have people come to my blog like you had going to yours!
• I learned to look for join in the little things in life and how to deal with what life throws at me.

I will never forget you and everything you taught me.  I promise that I will live the rest of my life for the both of us!  I know I will see you again and I can’t wait til that day comes.

I love you,

Margaret