My dearest friend for a very long time died on April third of this year. She was eighteen years old. Her name is Olivia Janon.

I've resisted blogging on this subject til now because it still hurt too much. My mind was too full of her. Who she used to be. Who she became, and all that we had shared. Olivia was a person so strong and vivacious that it rubbed off on me. When I met her in second grade, I was the quiet timid dorky girl in the back of class with HUGE glasses. She was the one with her hand waving wildly in mid-air in class- only to be called on and BURP instead of answer. (yes that happened). She gave me self-confidence, the strength to be my own person. She led by example and for that, I will be forever grateful.

But, for all her strength, she had demons. Many demons. Rather severe bipolar disorder, and several drug addictions, and the worst of all- insecurity. When I first met her, my love was enough. But soon, she didn't feel that she was a good person anymore. So, she gathered more friends who loved her. They became my friends, and we all held her dear to us. It was us four- Mike, Chet, Olivia and I. By the start of sixth grade, we four weren't enough- she still didn't feel loved enough. So, she tried to gather more friends. For awhile, others accepted her, only to reject her a few months later. Hurt and sad-hearted, she would come back to us five (by then, we had Randi too). And we would always be there to help her become strong again. This happened every few months. But, by the start of high school, Olivia was going places we could not follow. She was falling into crowds of "friends" who got her hooked on drugs and booze.

They provided what looked like, to Olivia, all the love she would ever need- in a single injection or a few puffs. All they did was give her more problems. Already unhappy with herself, she fell farther into depression. She became dependant on them. At the end of Sophmore year of high school, Olivia dropped out. I saw her maybe 6 times in the following two years.

She was in rehab, several times, and always relapsed. She was the saddest little girl in the world, I could not help her. Nothing I could say, or do, or provide, would make her okay again. Nothing I could have done would have brought my Olivia back to me.

Lately, she seemed to be doing okay. She was clean again and had a job. She was in a sort of half-way house, but wanted her own apartment. Her suicide came out of the clear blue. We will never know exactly why. Maybe she was angry at someone and didn't think it would actually kill her. Maybe she had been planning it and just hid it well.

On April Third, Olivia hanged herself in the half-way house she was staying at. The horror of that image will never leave me.The real tregedy of her death is not that shes gone, and its not that those left behind are sad, its that she will never have a 19th birthday. Or have a child. So, Olivia, from all of us, here are the things you'll never hear.: Happy 21. Congrats on your marriage, first career job, first child....

We had grown up together, she and I. Hardly any memory in my childhood is complete without her in some way. Her strange facial expressions, fantastic 39 second burps (That was her standing record to my knowledge), high pitched "squeek"- You know what I mean, Randi. Olivia was my sister, if not by blood than by tears. If not by tears, than by memories.

Her memory gives me strength to go on where I may have been too scared. Its her thats allowing me to go to college in Flordia and leave everything I have known here. Where she failed and could not continue, I will. Her earthly body may have died, but the idea and breath that was Olivia lives on in me. In Randi. In her mother, Lisa. In everyone who knew and loved her and was changed by her. She hasn't died at all, but became more intangable. I still love her, and always will.