My best friend

So I've been waiting to post this one for a bit...a week actually and it's because I don't have a digital picture. My best friend was Brandi Dawn Gullickson...what can I tell you about her so you get it.

We met in high school. I was a Jr and she was a Sophomore. She and her family just moved from Las Vegas and we became instant friends although I was shocked when I asked to take her home and she said her mom needed to see my license...how weird is that I thought. I remember driving down St Ann's hill with our heads sticking out the window screaming as loud as we could. I remember staying up late and talking or going for desert at Perkins. I graduated high school and then she did...we ended up being roommates in college and can I just tell you that that was the most growing I had done in a long time, so many adjustments. We bought a real tree for Christmas that year and we couldn't get it to stand straight so we tied it to the window crank that opened the window in our apartment. I remember dying our hair together, going to the "beach" together. Then I went to Ricks and she went to work. I moved to South Carolina and Brandi went on a mission for our church. She went to Arizona. We always stayed close, even through the arguments. When I was dating Rob I found out that the girl he liked in college was Brandi's Companion on her mission...small world. Then Rob proposed I said yes and then I thought should I wait til Brandi can come and be my bridesmaid and she said no get married, so Brandi was still on her mission when Rob and I married. When she got off her mission though Rob and I drove from South Carolina to South Dakota to surprise her at the airport, back in the day when you could wait where the planes landed. It was so good to see her. It had been years since I had seen here but it was just like old times. We talked for the few days that we were together, stayed up late together, went to get makeovers together...it was so good...thinking back that was the last time I saw her alive. I still struggle with that eight years later. In May of that year we found out that we were pregnant later we found out it was Isabella. When Isabella was six weeks old, February 19th, 2002 at 11pm I received the worst call of my life thus far...by best friend in the world was dead, what? how can that be I just talked to her on my birthday two days before...she had surprised her Mom with her visit and on her way home from Billings to Idaho Falls a crazy drunk who was high and NOT even a citizen of this country ran into my sweet friend's car and killed her instantly while they where able to walk away and live my sweetest friend who I will never see again on this earth, who never got to see my sweet baby girl or my other children grow. Can I say how much shock I was in...when I heard Patty say it I dropped the phone and shouted, Rob had known because Patty told him first. As I was holding my baby who now was crying I had to get myself under control I needed to take care of this sweet child that Heavenly Father sent us to raise, no time for freeking out or hystaria. So Isabella took her first road trip and we drove the 24 hour drive to SD for the furneral, over the next year I cried over this rairly and only on occations and in secret. 18 months later we were moving from Minneapolis to San Francisco and were able to visit Patty in Billings and she told us were the accident was and we had to go that way to get to San Francisco...as we were getting close I was holding it together, I needed to for my family right? We pulled off the road near the location and Rob said it's ok and I said I can't B hugged me said it's ok...I remember that so well it was like she knew...so I cried in the arms of my family Rob and Isabella holding me why I sobbed...true love, they are for me.
So here we are eight years later...I still think of Brandi but rarely because it still hurts so bad that my throat hurts. Today I write this not so much for you but for me. I love her and I know I will see her again. Now she is watching me seeing my family of sweet children.

I no longer have Best Friends that I can tell things to...I don't call my friends and ask them for advise or tell them I'm struggling. I do have friends but not a Best Friend...do you understand now?