02/01/2026
When your life shatters, build a mosaic.
The only way to bear the unbearable.
In coming together and holding one another’s broken hearts, we collectively built a mosaic from the shattered pieces.
Because I loved you, and because so many did, and in such an array of ways and weightinesses, I got to see so many more sides of you. Pieces I would have never uncovered on my own and in the role you cast me in. In seeing beyond the perspective of how I uniquely loved you, I get to love you more. Even more. Ever more.
Watching those who love you grieve you is love made exponential. You are my dear friend. The one I love in the hell of home hospice. In deviled egg memes. In millennial culture. In fit checks and selfies. In voice memos. Over cocktails. While sweating. While crying and hugging. As hype woman.
Now I have had the absolutely honor to see glimmers of you through the eyes of other kids of beloveds.
You are also loved as the mentor. The baby sister. The lover. The nerd. The angelic vocalist. The poet. The athlete. The one that got away.
Piecing you together.
Lauren - our Lauren - who belonged to none of us but herself.
I love you Lauren, and I love every piece. Every scrap. Every thread.
Thank you for loving me back, thank you for bringing more love than I ever knew possible into my life.