Time out.

I need to take a moment. Something I have been dreading for a while and let myself think, and feel, and cry.

This is Alena. My dear friend, my best friend. Well, besides John.
These aren't great pictures and I searched for better ones. May have some somewhere. But I couldn't pull them up. And then I realized something. These pictures preserved for me what Alena was...is: sincere to the core, real, humble, a bosom friend. We are cleaning out her house on this day. Junking all those "treasures" we all collect in our homes and then realize at major crossroads of our lives what really matters. We took a moment to be silly, to jump on the mattresses in this dumpster, and we laughed! Which was a hard thing to do, because like so many other times in my life, I was losing a close friend to a move. This time Alena, Trevor and their sweet children to Louisiana. When you move enough in life, you begin to think that friends are expendable. They come and they go. But family is around forever. Over my life I have done what I feared I would do this time. I withdraw as a departure looms ever closer. It's never the same. Never.

But Alena is different. I thought I had best friends in the past, and they are good friends. But Alena would listen to me, never judge me. We were so similar in so many ways. I can't express the gratitude I feel for having been given this gem of a woman for my friend.

So this is how these pictures represent a friendship. There are a few quotes about friends that help sum it up: "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind", and "People come into your life and people leave it... you just have to trust that life has a road mapped out for you". So thanks, Alena for being that kind of friend. I hope to have many more memories with you! A friend as dear as you IS family!