More of a Jo March than a Lizzie Bennet

A toast: to absent friends, in memory still bright.

This is my friend Ashleigh Webster. She died 8 years ago. I still miss her. She was good and she was kind and she should not have died. But she did. She decided she did not want to live, and so she never got to grow up. I grew up. And now I am 25 and so very old and so very tired.

But no matter how old I grow, 8 years or 80, Ashleigh will remain one of the very best people I have ever met. Perhaps gone, but remaining (always, always) in memory still bright.

(I made the picture 8 years ago, in paint. I printed it out and stuck it on the memorial wall we made at my high school. I have never had the heart to change it)