The Letters. (edit | delete)
by Kerrie Sursely

Hey,
I just want to say thank you!
I was just enjoying your poem.
It made me remember your character, and I love that!
I also want to say thank you for seeing something great in me when I couldn't.
I've worked really hard and will be moving in a month to Georgia to start my doctorate in physical therapy.
And on my journey I will take a part of me you have nourished into existence, a part of me I like very much!
Thank you,
Dylan.

Dear Kerrie,
Today I started packing to leave for Georgia. I stored a lot of things I can't take with me in my parents house. It was when I finished storing these things that I looked at them one last time, and I wondered how familiar they will be when I return. These objects will collect dust and stay the same until I return. But unlike them, we will age, and we will grow. I'm very busy lately, but get ahold of me before I leave if it interests you. I'll make time for you.
Always,
Dylan.

Dear Dylan,
Someone very special to me
(you Dylan) posted a poem on his Facebook a few years back.
By chance I stumbled upon it, fell in love with it, and knew it would be something I would carry with me through life.
Since then I have found myself sending that poem to many people who've sought my advice. In hopes it reaches a place deep in their hearts the way it had mine!
Just as quickly as I had begun to read that poem I could tell it was different, it cought my heart's attention! So, I continued to read it.
It was right before I had finished reading the third line when I realized that poem was going to change my life and...it did!
My dearest Dylan, you unknowingly gave me a gift that day!
I have cherished that poem from that moment and everyday there after!
I would love to give back to you that same gift as you leave one life to embark upon another carrying those thoughts and wonders you've posted today with you. Here is that poem...

One Art.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
Even losing you. Your joking voice, your gesture that I love.
I shouldn't have lied.
It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master, though it may look like I am a disaster.
(Written by, Elizabeth Bishop).

Dylan, just know this! You are without a doubt going to lose many things in life that will break your heart to lose! Especially when you can't find the answers as to why it is you've lost them. Sadly, that's just life!
Most never recover from their loses, only a few do.
That poem saved a part of me back then Dylan and I have only you to thank from the bottom of my heart for that!

Those things you are packing today,
wondering if they will be just as familiar to you when you return, will be! You will see them and instantly feel the same as you had when you left them. That's called HOME!

Today, I found myself starring adoringly at my children as they spent time with each other. Time we are not fortunate enough to spend often. Each of them were happy and laughing. That very moment I also noticed the room became silent, but silent only to me. I swear, I could hear my own memories of how my divorce shattered their lives, mine too! The way it felt back then was a feeling of loss. I became lost so my children became lost without reason or an answer why. I had nowhere to turn for help and even if I had; I would have never uttered a word for fear someone would think I were weak or a failure. I was left broken as a woman, broken as a mother, and no direction on how to find my way out. All I had left were two things, a silver lining I had found within my own tears, "No one will ever steal my smile again!" and what that poem had taught me as I read it, "It's okay to lose things just so long as we don't lose ourselves along the way"!
I vowed right then and there I would never be the victim! I would survive!
I found my strength knowing my children would learn how to be happy and how to survive "life" through my own actions! Then, slowly I was drawn out of my private thoughts by the sound of one of my twin daughters whom back then were only four years old and now are eleven, singing along to a song that filled the room. She sang, "Next to you. There is no other place I'd rather be!" I felt myself smiling ear to ear, feeling proud for overcoming life, finding ourselves again, and most importantly finding "home" within each other again!
That poem you posted that day Dylan was just a poem to you but it was something that became larger than life to me!
It gave back to my children the things they never deserved to lose!
I held myself deep and tight in that moment, proud of myself and proud of my children, cherishing every second of it...IT FELT AMAZING!

Just as that moment passed another thought had came crashing through my mind. Something so easy, something that I should have known all along, and something I will also remember forever along with that poem,
"Life is too amazing to not live amazing!"
Remember that Dylan.
Live your life amazingly!
Every time a moment happens to me the way it had just then, I remember that poem and without fail,
I remember you!
I will forever think of you thanking you silently from my heart!

You are one of the most amazing human beings I have ever been blessed to meet!

In part, let me leave you with one last thought.
Think of how many things that has happened throughout your life. From childhood until today. Think of how many people have come and gone and all of the time those people or moments have consumed from your life. Think of all of those memories you've kept from all of those people. The kind of memories you'll never forget, the kind you know you'll remember when you're at your last moments here on earth. Think of the ones that make you smile maybe even laugh a little. How many do you have? Probably not many, at best maybe just a handful.
I'm asking you this in hopes your answer helps you to really encompass and feel in your heart what I am about to tell you next...
I have just a few of those kinds of memories. Out of those few, TWO ARE OF YOU! Considering how short our time as coworkers and friends really was I find that pretty remarkable if you ask me!

Not only has your poem found a home within my heart but there is a memory of you that I just love, one I'm not soon to forget!
How could I ever forget the look on your face as you eagerly and excitedly clapped your hands so loudly as I slowly placed a plate of three little tacos in front of you.
The happiness you found in the simplicity of a small plate of tacos will forever be etched into my mind leaving me in small fits of laughter!
That probably doesn't sound very funny or something worth mentioning no less worth remembering to anyone else, and it has yet to make whomever I tell that story to laugh. But you laughed as I reminded you of it before, I laughed too! Oh well, it's my memory and I simply adore it just as I adore you!

God made you perfectly different than everyone else Dylan! You are special and unique! Don't quiet your mouth in hopes to hold back the very humor that makes you, you!
Make the world laugh. Hell, make the world cry too! Just be you!

I wish you well Dylan and a life filled with nothing short of what you have gifted me....AMAZING!!!
Take special care to everyone and everything you collect along the way and I promise the world will take care of you!

Till our paths cross again some day...
All of my love, Kerrie!