Today marks one year since Nichola's death. Like her birthday, I don't think that she would want everyone feeling sad over what can't be changed. It's so amazing to see how many lives she has touched. Whenever someone dies, there is always this innate ability that people have to only remember the positive things about a person. You forget about how they drank too much, or how they used to tease you about your weight, or their really annoying habit of picking their teeth at the dinner table. Those things are all pushed aside to remember the good things. But with Nichola there were no bad things to gloss over in order to focus on the other, nicer, prettier things. I was again reminded of this, when I put up a picture of her and I on facebook. People that I haven't talked to in years were messaging me telling me how they were missing her too. I have this problem of being too self-centered, and don't realize that there are so many other people asides from just me who are missing her. It made me that weird combination of happy and sad (which I suppose is called bittersweet isn't it?) and knew that she would be happy to see how much she was loved. I have been writing this post all morning, trying to find the right words to express what it is I am feeling, and saying something that I haven't already said so many times before. As with anything emotional, I have a hard time expressing myself and dealing with it....as I am still feeling guilt over the woulda, shoulda, coulda thing. But then this morning, I received the greatest email ever from e. who knew exactly how I was feeling and thinking, and made me realize that it is all ok. I have regrets about how I treated Nich, and guilt over the way I felt and the way that I acted, but that doesn't mean that I don't have a right to miss her, or love her...and she knows that.