31 May 2008
Molly Heineman
Dear Carrie,
I miss you. I’ve been missing you. Each new milestone makes me wish I could share it with you, talk to you about it and hear about your experience of it.
In the months after your death, there were several times where I caught myself with your phone number half dialed into the phone or I was already in my car turning my key in the ignition about to head over to your house. Then I realized you wouldn’t answer and you wouldn’t be there. I remember the pain that ripped through me in those moments and how I was simply inconsolable.
I remember the dull ache that summer that your deteriorated health and eventual death left me with. I looked at my classmates and couldn’t understand their happiness. I actually looked at them and thought, “Too bad that they don’t know that this joy doesn’t last forever.”
A year later, when I was getting ready to go off to college, I thought of you often. I wished I could get your oh-so-wise freshman advice as I had gotten when I was leaving 8th grade and getting ready for high school. Once I got to UD, I wanted you to be among the friends I stayed in touch with from home. I longed to include you in the drama of the girls on my floor and the boys I had crushes on, if only to hear you tell me how silly all of that was and remind me that it was a presidential election year and had I seen the latest debates on TV?
Now, I’m a college graduate. Can you believe it? I’m left with so many questions to ask you and conversations I just wish we could have. I wonder what you would think about this huge part of my life that is devoted to helping people in Eastern Africa. I wonder what you would have said when I told you I decided to go to Malawi for two years and I can’t come home. I wonder what challenging questions you would ask me about my non-profit that would help me think about it in a different way. More than anything else, I wonder what you would be doing now. Would you have moved back to the Chicago area after graduating college last year or would you be across the country like Luke? Or, even farther from home, would you be off of this continent working or studying somewhere?
Despite all my questions, time keeps moving forward. For a while I was scared that memories of you would fade completely or that I would stop thinking of you each day. Now, almost five years later, I know that I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I always think of you.
I had lunch with Kieran today. I wish you had been there. In a way, you kind of were, but I would have given anything if you actually had been there.
I love you lots,
Mol