"Smile" Scholarship

Because Blake loved our high school so much, his friends decided that the best way to honor his memory was to set up a scholarship for a graduating senior every year. Today Blake's mom, a couple of his friends, and I looked through the scholarship applications to pick a recipient.

The description for the scholarship reads:
"The family and friends of Blake Norvell established this $1,000 scholarship in honor of Blake’s passionate, fun-loving spirit and his infectious smile. Confidently riding around in his beat-up mini-van, Blake had the ability to make everyone around him feel welcomed and will be remembered as the “glue” that held Corona’s class of 2006 together. This scholarship will be awarded to a Corona del Sol senior student who most epitomizes the qualities that made our dear friend Blake so special—community leadership, academic acumen and a positive, outgoing personality."

Selecting a winner was a weird experience. As I was looking over the transcripts, lists of extracurriculars, and reading the raps they were asked to write (haha the best idea ever) I started wondering what they were thinking when they applied.

I applied to a bunch of scholarships as a graduating senior, many of them "memorial" scholarships. At the time I was grateful that a family was willing to give me money just for being me, but I never thought deeper about it than that. Aside from the brief description of their lost loved one, I never wondered who that person was, how giving that money to a student was meaningful to them, or why it was an important part of keeping their legacy alive. But today, all of this was going through my head as I was reviewing the applicants profiles.

As I was trying to picture each person's life, I was looking for words, for a feeling that felt like Blake. I wondered if the students who applied knew that I would be pouring myself into every letter, every comma, searching for the man that I miss more than anyone in the world. I was looking for a little piece of Blake within them; a small reminder of who he was and what he contributed to our high school and our lives. 

After about an hour, we picked a winner. Although I'm not sure when or how, she will receive $1,000 of the money raised in Blake's memory. Will she think about Blake when she receives it? Will she be proud that we saw a little bit of him in her? Will she be grateful to be a part of his legacy? Who knows. But what I do know is that even if she doesn't think about or realize these things, we do, and I think that's more important. Being able to give someone like Blake money to help them pursue their dreams means that he gets to continue to help others. And it means that we get to see a little piece of him again. 

Not Everyone Will Understand

Last night I learned a valuable lesson: not everyone will understand. They will hear how you died and it will scare them. This fearful confusion will affect them in a variety of ways, some obvious, some just far enough under the surface to go undetected. And for those people who don't understand- don't want to understand- I will change. In their eyes I will never look the same again.

At first there will be silence. A furrowed brow. A look of pity, concern, maybe disgust. And then, judging by their line of questioning, it will go one of two ways. They will either begin to look at me like I'm irreparably broken or like there must be something seriously wrong with me. I'm either too deeply wounded or was part of the problem. It'll be too much. Too soon. Too scary.

I could hide it, that's always been an option. Sometimes I trick myself into believing that it would be better if I did. If I exposed only just enough to keep our images safe and the inquisitor satisfied with answers, I would never have to watch myself change in the eyes of others. Look as a switch flicks, the sparkle fades, I dim. I'd never have to experience being written off by the people who don't understand- don't want to understand.

But in my heart I know that although not everyone will understand, some will try. Some will see what happened as it was, you as you were, and me as I am now. They will know that these are three distinct things that are all intertwined, but not inextricably so. Each aspect weaves into one another, lending fibers and adding texture. And even though who I am is decorated by you and what happened, I am still me in my own right. A little much, a little soon, a little scary, but no less sparkly.

Just Like We Planned

One of Blake's best friends lives a couple blocks away from me in San Diego. When Blake and I first started planning on moving here, we brought up his friend's name all the time. How great will it be for us to know someone who already lives here? We'll go out with him. Double date with him and his girlfriend. You two can get close again. It made our already exciting plan even better knowing he was there.

During Blake's funeral weekend, the majority of the planning, reminiscing, and saying goodbye went on at this particular friend's house. It was only fitting, considering many of their parties back in high school were hosted there. I went to high school with Blake and all of his friends, but was a grade younger. Although they all took me in and made me feel like I had been part of their friend group all along, he was someone I actually knew from before. So that Saturday night after the funeral when we were all over there, I asked him to leave the party to talk to me when I needed to release some thoughts and information I had inside my head.

We sat side by side on the lawn chairs as I recounted painful details of the months leading up to Blake's death. His friend looked down at the ground. His face, which was once warm with empathy for me, went ghostly pale. Instead of the loving arm around my back to comfort me, his hands began to clasp together as his body language demonstrated that he was trying to escape. "I'm sorry, did I say too much?"

He politely, but sternly told me that he didn't want to hear it. Any of it. Maybe it felt like the right thing for me to analyze exactly what went on, for how long, and all of the other excruciatingly difficult details, but it wasn't. Not for him, anyway. The Blake he knew was always happy, smiling, the glue that held his friend group together after all of these years. Although what I told him may have been Blake's reality at the time of his death, it wasn't a reality that he felt was necessary to dwell on. He felt awful that I was picking Blake apart. He wanted to see me and remember how in love Blake and I were. That's what I needed to focus on too. He gave me a hug, got up, and joined his friends back inside.

I went over that conversation again and again in my head. At first I felt sorry for him, thinking that he wasn't dealing with Blake's death properly. I thought he needed to process everything that went on so that he could come to terms with it, like I was trying to do. But then I realized that that thinking wasn't right. Because everyone deals with loss differently, there's no one way that's better than another. If he wanted to remember only happy times, then that's what he needed to do. It was unfair for me to try to force an image of Blake on him that he didn't know and frankly, didn't need to know. I wrote him an email to apologize and vowed only to be happy and speak highly of Blake whenever I was around him once I moved to San Diego.

I've seen his friend out several times since moving here, but we never spoke of Blake or that conversation again until this Saturday night. While we were both out celebrating our mutual friend's birthday, I started innocently talking to a guy. Apparently this guy works with Blake's friend, so when he saw us together he came up and started telling us how awesome it was that we were talking. My face got bright red. Not only was this a guy I just barely met, I was mortified that I was caught flirting by Blake's friend. Although it's been almost 10 months, I felt overwhelming guilt for being seen with someone else by someone so close to Blake.

Blake's friend pulled me aside. As he told me how happy he was to see me like this and how important it was for me to seek my own happiness, I felt like I wasn't talking to Blake's friend anymore. From the words he used to the way he talked, even how he calmed me down in the most effortless way, it felt like Blake was talking through his friend to me. He felt that way too, and told me so. Hearing him say it was not only ok, but exciting for him to see me like that felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my heart. When we hugged, it was like the three of us hugged. Maybe we did.

I finally brought up that conversation at his house after Blake's funeral. As I explained to him what was going through my head, he reassured me that it was ok. It was all ok. We are going to get through this together.

As we walked back together to rejoin our friends, I started thinking about Blake and my plan to move to San Diego. We brought up this friend's name all the time, which made our already exciting plan even better knowing he was here. He's still here, and so am I. And in that moment when we turned our more serious conversation into a series of funny stories about our Blake, he was there too. Just like we always planned.