Hi Again K!

Dear BF

Hi K. Usually when I write to you it begins, "I miss you. I feel like I haven't spoken to you in such a long time!" Usually, we'd say this only after a couple days of hardly speaking. Sometimes, I would just be outside of the room at work and you would be inside and you'd write me an email! This time, its been more than three weeks since we've spoken. I miss getting your emails, your texts, your phone calls, voice mails and visits Kara. I miss you.

You've always been the one who was there whenever my heart was breaking for whatever reason. You always made sure to check up on me and see if I was doing OK. You were strong for me when I couldn't be. You always supported me. It was always you. Now, my heart is broken into a million pieces and I know I have to be strong on my own now. I know you want me to be. I'm trying every day.

I've rarely seen you in my dreams. Since I was the last person you saw, I know you have more people to visit other than me. Like you would always say, "don't worry about me." I know you're busy getting used to heaven and all. You are always with me anyway, whether I see you or not. You are everywhere Kara. We are all reminded of you every day, even stupid little things will remind us of you. Remember when you used to carry salt packets in your wallet? Or put more salt on top of ketchup? I got a catalog of all scrubs today at work..we don't even need scrubs! When I hear a good song, I think "Kara would like this song. I should send it to her." There's a cat that always hangs out under my car and it freaks me out--you'd feel the same because you despised cats (even though you LOVED Hello Kitty). The Tour de France is coming up and Lance is racing! We rode your favorite Soarin' at California Adventures on Tuesday. All your songs play on the radio..over and over again--you know how you liked to play out all the songs you liked. I talk about you all the time to everyone! Sometimes I talk to you like you're there..maybe I am going crazy. Ha..I don't care.

Well Kara--your family, all the girls and I miss you very much every day. Please know that we will always be there for your family as we were always there for you. Have fun up there for us because down here its just not the same without you. I hope you've seen my Lolo up there...be friends since you're both new in town. Maybe you can help each other out. Well, "this is getting long enough." This isn't the last you've heard from me. "You're stuck with me." Love ya K!

-B

hello people please contribute to the writing

Hello People,

I'm really amazed at how many contributors we have on this blog but yet no one else has written anything but me and Christina?! Come on people, take a moment to write a little entry for Kara.


Peace and love,

Diane

Kara Photos

Here are some photos I took of Kara back in the summer of 2006 for my Photography class, it was a project on taking portraits of women. My theme was the strong beautiful female on the inside and outside. I just thought I'd share this with everybody. I never really did show anybody these photos except for my class. These photos truly capture the essence of Kara's personality. The one I actually used for my final project was the serious one of her looking down. I hope you'll also enjoy these photos as I have. If anyone wants a high resolution version just email me, I've saved these in a smaller format for the web. I'm planning on printing a few of these for her parents.

Peace and Love,
Diane

Dear Kara,

We went out for Eric's birthday last night, I wish you were there.  Marj, Berns, Christal, and Ron came too and that makes him so happy.  You're legacy has really affected Eric in a positive way and I'm happy and thankful that it has.  

Everything reminds me of you.  I feel like your so present in my life each and every day.  Thinking about what you would say or do in any given situation makes me feel like you never left.  You've really brought people together again and you've made many of us value each day more and more like you always do.

Oh yeah, I bought the camera that Marc bought, the one that he said you were gonna buy.  I don't know how to pick out cameras but I figured if it was good enough for you it would be more than enough for me and it is, it's freaking 12.1 mega pixels! What the heck do I do with all that?!  I can't be as paparazzi status as you, it's such a tough job!

You probably already know, but Marc, Angie, and Eric came up to surprise me on Monday.  I know you would've been down to come up too.  We miss you here at the Lakehouse.  We watched your slideshow again, Eric added a Halloween picture and you look super cute/hot but you already know that.  We listened to your wedding song on repeat all night again.  Being together makes us all feel like you're there with us and I know that you are.  We really love sleepovers these days, haha.

I have to get ready for work now I don't get off until 11pm, yay.  Sorry I couldn't make it to any of your prayers days, but I keep you in mine.  I miss you so much Kara.  I hope you got your orientation of heaven already.  Can't wait to dream about you again. 

Love you,

Chris

This is not the end By The Bravery

I have not heard this song in such a while... and the lyrics "This is not the end" kept popping up in my head all week when I thought of Kara. So crazy, then I listened to it and it just made sense. The words have such a great impact... Please listen to it if you can.

I don't know most of Kara's friends but the few she hung out with on a regular basis knew that we were extremely close as cousins and as good friends. Chris, I read the previous post and it really did make me cry, I remember when she was visiting you a few months ago. It's great to see that Kara was loved by everyone and she has such amazing friends. Our whole family could not have done all the work that all her friends contributed. Especially with the slideshow, pictures, taking things to get printed, and all the picture collages... Thanks everyone for making this a truly memorable event. The news shocked the rest of our family and I still have a hard time believing she's gone... in my heart I truly still feel her there. The whole week has been so hazy and such a blur... I was there at her house and I kept looking for her out of habit... every time I would come over in the last few years, it was a routine. But then I realized she wasn't there anymore, and it was so weird to think we would never have these amazing conversations about life and love and relationships.... is what we talked about. I was so proud of her for studying so hard for her boards and passing it the first time she took the exam, she was so worried that she didn't. All the times she helped babysit Izaiah and the last few times she would pick him up after school at Hickmann Elementary... he still remembers the time he spent with his Auntie Kara.

My heart is so heavy, but I know her... she would want everyone to have happy memories of her and to only remember the good times. She was all about good times! She never was rude or negative to anybody... She said what she wanted to say. We had the most open, most heartfelt relationship... we never left anything unsaid between us... so in a sense there were no regrets because there were no secrets between us... there wasn't anything that I held back from saying... she could always sense that I had something to tell her. Its crazy... I'm really spiritual and I believe in reincarnation, destiny, and the soul's purpose... I really believe that Kara's life purpose was about love. The last few months when she was traveling to LA back and forth studying and taking review classes for her boards... I really felt like she was leaving us... I would visit and she wouldn't be there and I'd sleep on her bed and I always got this weird sense that she was going somewhere and I didn't know where. So of course I ignore my intuition. If there's something you should all know is that I operate on my sixth sense... yes I'm psychic but I cannot predict your future! Lol. I don't care who knows it anymore. Everyone has some form of psychic energy but they don't always tap into them. Emotions and visions are really spontaneous and random.... my senses are wide awake and growing at a faster speed that its always telling me something that I always just ignore. The whole week before Kara's accident I could not sleep at all! I would wake up at exactly 2:01, 2:10, 2:31 am and I just felt so uneasy that something was going to happen... the night before the accident at 2am monday morning I woke up from a bad dream... I was crying in my dream and woke up crying. My chest was heaving and painful when I woke up and I didn't know why I was feeling this... it was some sort of premonition. One of my aunts who's visiting from the Philippines saw a psychic in February and asked when she would come to the U.S. again, and she kept telling her soon in a few months... and she was like no I'm planning next year, and they psychic was like it's not going to be pretty and my aunt said she didn't want to know what. I really felt like it was written in the stars. I had a dream of her in April before she met Ron... I told her that I had a dream she would be dating someone soon, in my dream I saw her getting to know a guy and going out on dates and the guy looked smitten in my dream. So when she told me about Ron it was a weird deja vu...I kept telling her take it easy and take it slow... and she really did this time around want to do things right and enjoy the moment.

Sometimes we only see what's in front of us... we don't ever dare venture into the unknown... maybe because of pre conceived notions, ideas, and beliefs that we grew up learning. No one ever wants to think that there is some higher force working, a bigger picture and a bigger reality of how things and events play out in our lives. I really do feel like she touched so many hearts that she left such a big imprint in each and every one of us that will never die... she wanted to be remembered in this way... the joyous, fun-loving individual she was. I love her so much, it still hurts but I know in time the pain will fade.

Love never dies... even in death. We should cherish all the love that is still in our life... she would want us to.




Tell me
Come on tell me what you can
Even as you wait for death you're wiser than I am
Tell me what does it mean to exist
I am not a scientist I must believe in more than this
And I can not accept
That everything is real
Is only what our eyes can see
And our hands can feel

[chorus:]
Not even earth can hold us
Not even life controls us
Not even the ground can keep us down
The memories in my head
Are just as real the time we spent
You always be close to me
My friend
This is not the end

I see
I can see you're so afraid
You wear it like a silver hood on you even fear looks good
I wish I wish I had some words to give
But all I can think to say
Is I'll be with you everyday

[chorus]
Not even earth can hold us
Not even life controls us
Not even the ground can keep us down
The memories in my head
I just realized the time we spent
You'll always be close to me
My friend
This is not the end

La la la la la
This is not the end
La la la l al la
This is not the end

I don't care
I don't care what you believe
As long as you are in my heart
You're just as real as me
Maybe even more
Someone has touched so many lives
Can never never die



--- Diane

Dear Kara,

I just got back to Long Beach from SD.  You're memorial at the site makes me cry, but seeing all the people there to remember you makes me so happy.  You should see us all crying like little "b words" it would make you laugh.  I kept texting you while I sat on the sidewalk because it makes me feel closer to you.  I wasn't expecting you to get back to me in my freakin' dreams.  It was the coolest and creepiest dream ever Kara, you pretty much haunted me in my sleep last night, but I was laughing at the same time!  It made me feel crazy, but happy all in one.  I prayed that you would answer my texts and you answered in the craziest way.  I have this picture of you on my phone's wallpaper, the one I took of you when you took me to Sea World for beer school.  Anyway, it's on my home screen and I guess I kept waking up to see if you texted back last night.  Then sometime in the middle of the night in my dream your picture started moving and it was like you were video chatting with me through my phone! Who needs iChat anymore?!  I'm not gonna lie I was freakin' scared, but it was so comforting that I got to "see" you and "speak" to you.  I know you have so many other people to visit and talk to, but let me tell you I don't mind you creeping me out in my sleep, just don't startle me please!

I still can't believe you're in heaven and not here on earth.  When I look at your pictures or read your recent text messages I feel like it's all a joke and you're just being a punk like always.  Marc, Eric, and I were talking before we left the memorial last night and we were saying how when we get to heaven you'll be waiting there to show off and show us all the cool things you know about being an angel.  We decided you'll probably have Hello Kitty decorated wings and that you'd probably just get them fluffed for our arrival.  Marc said you'd say, "what took you so long?"  He's right you probably would.  

I don't know if I'll ever believe that you're gone.  But writing to you makes me feel like you're in SD and I'm in LB and that's as far as the distance between us is.  Heaven sounds like it's a lot further than an hour and half drive, but if I could get a ride there I'd hang out with you on my days off.  I freakin' miss you Kara, so unbelievably much.  I know I always miss you when I'm at school, whether it's LB or SB, but I miss you more and more each day if that's even possible.  Too bad I never get tired of you.  Well I have to get ready for work, I'll be back in SD tomorrow afternoon for your viewing.  See you there!

Love you,

Chris

Dear Kara,

The moment I heard about what happened keeps replaying over and over in my mind.  Each time I run it back I think if I try hard enough I can create a different ending, but each time I struggle to accept the reality of it.  I was at work when I found out and you know how easily I cry, so I was an instant mess and I excused myself to my truck.  I know you'd tell me to, "suck it up and be a man," but I was so mad on my drive home. Mad that I couldn't change the course of events that took you from us, mad that we weren't going to be able to catch up like we planned, mad that you were gone and I could never have you back.  I know I shouldn't be mad because there are so many memories and moments I've shared with you that make me happy.  I know you're not really gone and that we can always talk, but I guess the selfishness in me is yearning for your physical presence.

Remember how we'd say, "I swear if you were a guy, I'd marry you?"  If you were Kara, I really would!  You are the keeper of all my deepest secrets.  You accept and understand me like no other girl does.  Time and distance is never a determinant of how strong our friendship is. Chris + Kara know no boundaries in the realm of friendships.  We never judge each other and we always tell it like it is.  The friendship I share with you is as real as it gets.  I can't even count how many of my bad decisions you've been there to help clean up or tell me that I can get through it and I always believe you because you always believe in me.  

We have so many great memories and I'm so thankful that they all make me laugh.  You never believed me when I said, "Laurie thinks you're the funniest girl she's ever met," but it's true.  My roommates and I spent some time talking and laughing about the times you shared with the three of us up here.  Laurie and Rizza both remember the fun night we had when you came up and went to Hush with us.  Casey remembers you as the "girl that kept taking pictures for us."  Derrick remembers you as "the girl that dances crazy from Bar D."  Haha. Those memories have Kara written all over them.  Remember how that same weekend we shared my bed and slept in my electric blanket and you wanted one so bad so we went to the store and bought you your own, then went back to my house and napped in the middle of the day with one blanket under us and one blanket on top, BOTH on HIGH heat?!  We were so weak from heat exhaustion that we just kept going back to sleep!  Kara, only you appreciate and share my love for electric blankets at maximum heat capacity, even in the Spring!

It's all so unreal that I feel like I could just call you right now or text you.  I already miss how we'd text each other all day just to get through a dreaded day at work or school.  Remember how I wanted to blog like you did, but you were the only one that had the password to read it?!  Maybe this time I'll share this blog with everyone else that loves you because there's so much to say about you.  You would never believe how many people care about you, Kara, but that's only because you are always so excessively modest.

We are so good to each other and I know you know that.  The biggest fights we've had usually pertain to why one of us is being more self-less than the other!  You have the biggest heart, Kara, always putting other people before yourself no matter how big or small the pain or struggle you have to endure.  No one makes me laugh like you do, seriously.  You're humor is so unique to who you are and it's what's going to get me through these times.  I'm going to stay strong for the both of us and for everyone that loves you.  But I can't promise I won't break down.  When I do I have our memories to pick me up again.

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH KARA and I'm happy because I know you always fully understand how deep our love goes.  Every relationship should be as mutual and honest as ours is.  Thank you for blessing me with your love and friendship each and every day.  You're my mom and dad's "second daughter" and the sister I never had.  I miss you Kara and I will never stop missing you.

Love,

Chris

You are a fighter just like the love of your life, Mr. Lance Armstrong.  The footprint you left in each one of our hearts will help us all LIVESTRONG.

"Pain is temporary.  Quitting lasts forever."

- Lance Armstrong