Bonnie

My friend Bonnie died the day before yesterday. She was only 25 or 26 and a month away from her birthday. She was a great athlete but somehow an undetected heart problem took her suddenly. I never expected her to be the first of my friends to die. I never expected ANY of my friends my age to die right now of anything other than a freak accident. It is such a shock. I haven't seen her in five or six years, but the time we spent together in high school as friends gave us memories for a lifetime. I will always remember her laugh and her smile, her cheerful attitude and joy for life. She was a great listener and friend and was one of the sweetest people you could have ever known. She loved Jesus and I know she is in heaven with Him.

(the following written Oct 4-5)
She was able to be burried at the top of the hill we lived on in India. It's nice to see God in control in that way. If you read her last entries in her blog, she talked about her mountains and how she could experience the majesty of God in looking out over the snows. Now it's her final earthly resting place. For some reason that means a lot to me. I don't know if she would have been able to be burried there had she not moved back to India just three months earlier. God planned all that. In knowing she would have wanted it that way, it gives comfort to us who survive her. And now when we go back to visit Mussoorie, we can visit her grave and remember her life. And then look out over the mountains and wonder at the majesty of God as she would have.

We really don't know how much time we have here on earth. Live every day to the fullest. As if today is your last. It's hard to keep that perspective everyday, but it's at least good to remember that we don't know the future. We can plan and we can strive to accomplish things but we are not in complete control.

I'd like to post a picture of Bonnie, but I didn't have a digital camera until a few years ago so I'll have to figure out how to scan one in.

To all my friends and family who read my blog, I love and appreciate you all. You have all impacted my life in some way and I want you to be sure you know you mean a lot to me. I just had an idea of making a goal of writing a letter expressing this to each of my friends and family. (This could take a while as I have made so many amazing friends around the world over the span of my relatively short life.) But it seems like a good project. Yeah. I think I'll do that. Hopefully I get to your name (and actually end up completing my project) by the time either of us are called Home.