People keep asking me how I am and I keep giving the obligatory, "I'm fine" or "okay", mostly because I don't want to dump my problems on them or have even one more person feel sorry for me.

​I was about to head to bed for the night when I heard my email notification on my phone. I really should have known better, but I checked it. The following comment was left on my post 5 Things You Can Do To Help Someone With Depression:

(If you can't read the image, it says:

​Do you know. You aren't sick. Or it is just different perspective. Is your life nice? Do you live your dream? Have you ever tried to know yourself? Honestly and Truly?!?!?#??# Do you think they EVER! EVER! TRIED? You are just sick of them. From all of it. Realizing that you are living in waterfall of big life directing LieS .Get a school, get a job, get married, get a morgage, get a kid, get a dog, get a second kid, get .................WHATEVER! Do you understand? WHERE IS LIFE IN THIS??#?! Just silence. It's gone. Go to the mirror look at your eyes and say out loud "I LOVE YOU AND I AM PROUD OF YOU" and after...choose who do you want to be and think. For good. Don't write this anymore.
​
And since we all know I can't shut up, here's my reply:

I know it's cliche but this really does feel like the longest week of my life and I'm not even the one who lost a husband/father. (Read about the Gifford Family and their loss here.) We've been preparing for the funeral, arranging the family's transportation back to Washington State, where BJ will be buried. I still can't believe that a week ago Keani and I did our semi-weekly Costco/grocery trip and she mentioned that BJ hadn't been feeling well.

Both of us have boys in Cub Scouts and we'd had our first Rain-Gutter Regatta a few days before. It struck me as a bit odd that their son's boat wasn't ready yet. BJ was hugely involved in scouts and they always had something incredible prepared for Pinewood Derbies. I sent my son over to borrow some sandpaper from them and he told me that Keani and BJ's son needed help with is boat too.

I am still in shock over this, so it's really hard to write.

When my neighbor, Keani, told me she and her husband had several replicas of the weapons from Lord the of Rings in their living room, a life-long friendship was automatic. I drool over them, their LOTR statuettes, memorabilia, and their Frostmourne replica, every time I'm at their house.

Since that day, several years ago, we've become fast friends, sharing our love of Warcraft, white tigers, and geeky things (despite her aversion to Doctor Who, which we constantly joke about), and even starting a business together. Our kids (who are around the same ages) and dogs play together, we go grocery shopping together, we've even celebrated holidays together (I don't think I'll ever forget trying to stop our kids from chasing each other with fireworks!) They're family now.