A year.

I don’t know how a year can possibly exist between then and now.

I remember standing in my kitchen with you. We had just lost one of our best friends, and we both collapsed to the floor, holding onto each other because neither of us knew what else to do. I remember you crying out, “Why?”

Why?

I wish I could go back to that moment and tell you that six months later, I would be standing in the same kind of grief, except this time I would be grieving you.

You left us the same way.

And there is something about that that I still cannot make sense of.

You were always there. You were the person I could find my way back to. We left each other notes. I would sit on your bed for hours while we laughed until our stomachs hurt, cried until we had nothing left, and contemplated every beautiful, terrifying, ridiculous thing life could possibly throw at us.

You were like a big sister to me.

And I loved you more than you ever knew.

I just never imagined that all of those conversations wouldn’t include you.

I never imagined there would be a last note. A last laugh. A last time sitting on your bed. A last conversation that I would give anything to have back.

Addiction is cruel because it takes a person you know and love and slowly convinces them that they are something they are not. It takes and takes and takes until there is almost nothing left for anyone to understand except the wreckage.

But you were never the wreckage.

You were Megan.

You were complicated and stubborn and hilarious and infuriating and tender. You loved fiercely. You carried more than people knew. You wrestled with God. You questioned Him. You got angry with Him. You didn’t always understand Him or agree with Him.

But you loved Jesus.

And I think maybe that is one of the things I understand differently now.

Faith was never supposed to mean that we stopped asking why.

Jesus could handle your questions. He could handle your anger. He could handle every ugly, honest, broken part of you.

And I believe He loved you through all of it.

I wish addiction hadn’t won so many battles.

I wish you had stayed.

I wish I could sit on your bed again and tell you about everything that’s happened since you left.

I wish I could leave you a note.

I wish I could call you. 

I wish I could hear you laugh.

I wish I could watch you roll your eyes at me one more time.

Mostly, I wish I could tell you that you were loved. Deeply. Completely. Even in the places where addiction made it difficult to reach you… whether it was me struggling or you. 

One year without you doesn’t feel like one year.

It feels like a thousand tiny moments of remembering that you aren’t coming back.

And still, somehow, you are everywhere.

In the memories. In the notes. In the laughter. In the grief. In books and articles. In the questions.

And in that kitchen.

I will never forget you holding onto me and crying, “Why?”

I wish I had known then that someday I would be asking the same question about you.

Why?

I don’t have an answer.

Maybe I never will.

But I know this:

I loved you then.

I loved you when you were struggling. 

I loved you in that last conversation.

I love you now.

And I will keep loving you for as long as I am here.

I hope wherever you are, there is finally peace.

And I hope you know how desperately we wanted you to find it here.

I love you, Megan.

More than you ever knew.