See you soon.

"Shady Acres today?" I read the note passed to me from Heather, all the way across Hofstetter's physics classroom. I spent most of the lunch periods my senior year running with Heather to Albertson's or the local convenience store / cafe for typical high school food. (It grosses me out thinking about the quantities of tater tots we ate that year. And I wish that were a Napoleon Dynamite reference, but it's not. We probably ate tater tots twice a week.)

As I remember it, my friendship with Heather went back to 10th grade Algebra 2. Mr. Daley's 3rd period class. We suffered through a lot during that class. His hour-long slideshow of his trip to Ireland, accompanied by him on the fiddle (remind me never to do that to my classes). A mandolin accompaniment to "y is equal to x plus or minus the square root of..." whatever the rest of quadratic formula is. We knew a lot of the same people and had all the same classes, and it was fairly natural for us to become friends. By our junior year, we were inseparable: Heather, Amanda and me. Shopping, road-tripping, late-night movie dates with Chuck. Powder puff football, prom, morp and weekly "study sessions" for AP U.S. History that usually turned into pool/dart-throwing contests. Heather was a great friend - smart, witty and always ready to have fun.

Then, about a year and a half after we graduated from high school and went our separate ways, Heather was diagnosed with sarcoma. You all don't need the details of the past four and a half years, except to know that through everything, she remained the happy and spirited and beautiful friend I knew. I'm pretty good at complaining about everything wrong in my life, but I never saw Heather do the same. I have been so blessed to have this wonderful woman (friend, example) in my life and I know she will missed tremendously by all who loved her. I know that Heather has moved on from the pain and trials of this life, but that she is living still in the next, and I know that she will be reunited again with her family and friends. I can't answer the "why" question that I've been asking for the past couple of weeks, but I do know that the Lord has a purpose and that he is watching out for both Heather and for those who are left to mourn her.

http://www.legacy.com/idahostatesman/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=126046508

Love you and miss you, Heather. See you soon.