Chase

When I was 26, my cousin died of leukemia. He was 17 when he was diagnosed. It was pretty progressed when the doctors caught it. Even with treatments and a bone marrow transplant, we still lost him. I will never forget his laugh. He had this laugh. It's crazy when someone passes unexpectedly like that. You wish that you would have talked to them a little bit more. I come from a small family, so even distant cousins are not so distant. Chase was closer in age with my youngest brother. They started hanging out a lot as they go older, so he was always at my house. I was going to school at the time. I would come back to my hometown on the weekends... but I was always running around doing my own thing. I would see my cousin... but I just wish that I would have paid attention more. His illness and his death were the saddest thing. He was so full of life and had everything going for him. I feel like no one had anything bad to say about him. I am told that he had dreams of going to New York and pursing a life there. I will never forget the morning that I got the call that he was gone. I will never forget looking at him in a casket. I will never forget his laugh. I will never forget how I started having the thought process that I would achieve my dreams in his honor.

I thought about my cousin this morning on my drive to church  (and on the way home). I was just thinking about myself and how I need to just keep posting my blogs on social media. I thought about how I don't need to be this quitter... because I'm not a quitter. I thought about how my cousin and so many other people never even get to achieve their dreams. Somewhere along the way in life, I decided that the best way to honor those situations was to live my best life. I thought about how quitting is a luxury that I can't afford. If you think about it, quitting really can be a luxury in the moment. It gets you off the hook and allows you to not be accountable. I honestly really don't know how to quit. I know how to pause. I know how to have a moment. I don't know how to quit. I don't really want to make this a big deal. I just feel like I need to see my ideas through. For some reason, I have this desire to put my thoughts out there. So... I should just follow through with that. I was also thinking about the concept of serving earlier. You cannot serve others and be so caught up in yourself. Sometimes, I think I take myself way too seriously. So... I am going to try to stop. And that's all I have to say. :)

Love,

Autumn