Goodbye, my friend.

February 6th, 2010

As I write this, it is Friday, February 5, 2010.

Anita left this world today at 10 a.m. I received an e-mail from her friend Becky, who is the reason I met Anita in the first place. I am beyond shocked.

I am in a state of disbelief.

I can’t stop crying. Mostly because I just finished the little mini scrapbook for her children that I showed here about a week or so ago and it’s still sitting in the box on my desk waiting to be mailed. The title “Remember” that I chose for the cover really strikes a chord with me now. I thought of her for days while I made that little book. Along with the journal that I made last October for Anita to write in. Sitting here in the box. There’s a card in the box that I wrote to Anita and a worry stone that I had bought her a long time ago. And the 2-page layout made by Mandy Douglass from the Creating Keepsakes magazine article about us in February of last year. I always felt that she should have it instead of me, so it was in the box also. I regret that I never sent it.

Meeting her was a huge experience in my life, and so many people who read this blog (and who don’t) helped me to make the trip to Canada and make my dream to meet Anita and deliver her scrapbooks that we made for her a reality. I have always been so grateful for each one of you, but now even more so. You will never ever know what it meant to me, to see all of you strangers to me (and some not) come together and donate your money and bid on my auctions so that I could make the trip happen. Making those scrapbooks for Anita and making that trip and meeting her in person and corresponding with her via e-mail and phone before and after that trip…..the whole experience……is something that changed me as a person inside. It’s impossible to explain. I will never ever forget all of you doing that.