My friend Brooke

So I decided to dedicate this post to a great great friend of mine Brooke Porter.  I will explain why Ruby is the picture i used for this post in just a minute. First i want to explain why i am posting about Brooke, you see Brooke was born with Cystic Fibrosis and after many years of battling this disease Brooke pasted away last July.  Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of her passing.  Yesterday family and friends gathered at the Spokane temple to participate in her ordinance work.  While i was in the Temple i was able to reflect on how Brooke has impacted my life in the short time that i got to spend time with her.

I grew up in Brooke's ward but she was a couple years older than me so we weren't really friends growing up, plus she was always gone due to being sick.  It wasn't tell i came back from college in Utah to live in Spokane that i became friends with her.  I think i would be safe in saying that she was the life of the singles ward.  She knew everyone and everyone knew her.  Her house which she shared with some other girls was the place everyone wanted to be and you could always find her in her room hanging out with someone.  This is exactly how our friendship started, in her room eating fruit snacks and her asking all about what was going on in my life.  She made it so easy to spill the beans about everything i had been up to and it was even easier to talk to her about the trials i was going through.  She was the best listener.  Some of my favorite memories can be traced back to her water bed and jewel toned room with push up bras scattered all around.  Brooke loved her push up bras!

Brookes friendship ment and still means a lot to me. She had the most contagious laugh and a mischievous one as well.  One of the funniest quirks about Brooke that made me love her even more was that she confessed to being a sleep eater.  She would eat tons of food when she was asleep and often times evidence of her late night feedings would be found tucked away in her waterbed.  I will never forget all the times a sat down on the bed only to discover, candy corn, fruit snacks, or pretzels.  It always made my day.  Another thing i loved about Brooke was that a lot of times when things got really silly and you got her laughing really hard it usually ended up turning into a ten minute cough session with people who didn't know her asking if she was alright and if we should do something and the people who did know her just continuing to laugh, including Brooke.  

I owe a lot to Brooke, she taught me a lot of great gospel principles through example but the main reason i owe a lot to Brooke is because she pushed me to ask Bryce to go leaf hunting, she was the one that realized how perfect Bryce and I were for each other before we knew it.  Her mom told me later that brooke loved to watch me and Bryce fall more and more in love with each other.  When Bryce and I got engaged we like many engaged couples before us started hanging out with our friends less and less and sadly my times with Brooke became fewer and fewer.  I often got texts from Brooke asking me to come over and tell her how wedding plans were going and sadly many times i was to busy to stop by and see my friend.  That is seriously one of my biggest regrets to date that i didn't spend as much time with Brooke when she asked me to come over.  When i found out that she had passed away that was the feeling i felt that most, regret.

I can't believe its been a whole year since her passing because it feels like just yesterday i was laying on her water bed hanging out with her and all her other great friends.  It was great to be able to be there to witness her mom going through the temple for her.  You could just feel that brooke was there the whole time because everyone there had smiles on their faces and Brooke always knew how to make people smile.  I love you Brooke and I feel so incredibly blessed to have not only known you but to have been your friend.  My life has been greatly impacted by you and i can say that if it wasn't for your knowledge and hand in my life that i would not have my incredible husband or precious little girl.

Even though i have only been a mom for a little over three weeks I can understand better how hard it must be for your mom to have to let go of her precious little girl.  I can't even image how hard it must of been for her to watch you go through so much pain and then to ultimately have to let you go.  It makes me appreciate my beautiful baby girl Ruby.  I try not to take it for granted that she is healthy and that i get to be apart of her life.  It also reaffirms my testimony in the plan of happiness and that families are truly eternal and that this isn't the last time i will see you.  When Ruby was a week late i was so frustrated and annoyed because i was so ready to just have her in my arms, but then a thought came to me that you were probably telling Ruby to wait a little longer because you thought it would be funny to make me wait.  Thats why i posted a picture of Ruby at the beginning of this post because i know that she got to spend a lot of time with you and that it wasn't to long ago that Ruby was up there hanging out with you laughing together.  thank you Brooke for everything and thank you for all the fruit snacks they are one of my favorite things to eat.