In Loving Memory of My SisterFriend Lakia bka Lark

Tuesday, October 29 2024 12:17pm

It has been 10 years and three days since my sisterfriend died. The other day, I jokingly called myself a “literal linguist,” which is true in a way. So, let me say this: sometimes people say, “We lost them” when someone dies, but my sisterfriend is not lost. She is beaming in heaven. She is my guardian angel. She’s not going to make me cry while I write this post, even though the tears want to come. Honestly, I don’t really feel like crying right now, so I’ll chuckle instead, laugh instead, mourn instead, grieve instead. Because I can assure you, over these last 10 years, I’ve done it all—laughed, cried, mourned—sometimes all at once.

Ten years feels like a mix of “oooooooooone Mississippi, twooooooooooooooooooo Mississippi…” and “11 bajillion Mississippis.” Time has this strange way of both crawling and flying by. When I think back on the last 10 years, sometimes it feels like someone hit fast forward.

We were supposed to grow old together. She didn’t get the memo—or maybe she got it but was forced to returned it to sender. But clearly, God had other plans for her.

I’ve heard it said:

Grief is love with nowhere to go.

I don’t believe that anymore. I challenge that thought. Grief goes where I put it, just like anything else. When I set my water bottle or keys down and can’t find them later, they’re lost. But grief is different. Sometimes it’s exactly where I left it. Other times, I wonder, “Where did my grief go?” and feel like I’ve lost it. So now, I choose where to place my grief. No longer do I eat my feelings, or eat the foods Lark loved but I hated, just to feel close to her. Spoiler alert: it didn’t ever work! It just led me deeper into food addiction, longing for something that no substance could fill.

In 12-step programs, they call that longing “a God-sized hole”. Why? Because only God can fill that space. And when I manage my grief, it’s because I am letting myself be loved by my sisterfriend, who, while not physically here, is always spiritually with me. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience, and even though her body is gone, her spirit is still here. I have learned so much from her since her death—lessons from her life that continue to surprise me. That’s love. A love so big it couldn’t be contained to her lifetime. Even in her death, love remains and expands!

Expansion. A friend (hey, Samer!) recently told me that my word is “expansion,” and it keeps coming up. Lakia visited him in a dream, and I asked, “Could you please tell her to come to my dream, too?” I’m still waiting, knowing she’ll come back whenever she’s ready—or perhaps, whenever I’m ready.

I used to go to bed hoping that night would be the night she’d visit my dreams again. Three years after her death, I even hoped for an out-of-body experience under anesthesia during surgery, thinking, hoping it might bring us together. I was desperate. Missing her. But time has shifted that desperation into something softer.

My sisterfriend was bold, sometimes annoyingly so, but I see now that her boldness was courage. Her choices an act– a leap!– of faith. Faith often looks and is countercultural, counterintuitive. It only has to make sense to the one living it. She lived her life in faith, and I live mine now in that same spirit.

So, what do I know now, 10 years after her death, that I didn’t know then?

I know I will continue to transform. I know I will continue to live well. I know now that my faith is the single most important thing about me. I don’t need anyone to like me or agree with me. I need to agree with myself, to live in integrity. That’s what my sisterfriend taught me—integrity, in life and in death. If there’s one thing I must do, it’s to live in integrity according to my faith, my beliefs, and what God says is true—not what anyone else says is true.

Someone told me recently that gravity doesn’t need my belief to be real; it simply is. And the sun doesn’t ask permission to shine; it just shines. Lakia made bold decisions to simply be, and that’s who I want to be, who I already am!, too. I am committed to that.

If you’d like to pay it forward, if you want to honor Lakia, it’s simple. Smile—not just with your teeth but with your heart, your eyes, your soul. She had a joy that came from within. She will always have it, forever a spiritual being. To honor her, to honor myself, to honor the God in all of us, I ask that you smile. Share your joy. Share your light.

God, thank You for being. Thank You for not thinking, for not ruminating, but for simply being. Thank You that sitting here and writing about my friend is meditation, being, presence. Help me be more of You and less of me. Help me think less so I can be more—more bold, more courageous, more loving, more kind, more patient. These are all acts of being. Love is being. Being is action.

Thank You, God, for helping me be. Help me be still and know that You are God. Help me be still, to know You more, to know myself more, and by extension, to love others more. Help me love from my overflow, not from the deficit of loving myself. Help me love myself so that I can love and care for Your children more. For everyone reading this, God, help them love themselves in a way that only You can, because You are love, and Your love is perfect, not transactional. Your love covers a multitude of sins, and we are sinners.

Thank You, God, for all that I am, all that I was, all that I will be. Thank You, God, for all that I am not, all that I was not, and all that I won’t be, because who I am is good.

Your will, not mine, be done. Your will and mine be one. Align my will to Yours, God. I surrender my free will to You, so that I can live a life exceedingly and abundantly above all I could ever ask, think, or imagine. In Your mighty, matchless, holy, infinite, and abundant name, I pray. It is already done. It is already so.