Celebration in the mist of losing a friend

On January 30, 2009 I lost two of my friends, Emily Paige Long and Brittany Shea Wells. I went to school and grew up together in the youth group at our church with them.

Shea, Emily, Shea's boyfriend and another guy were traveling down Three Springs Rd. going to the movies in Emily's car. Shea was driving and was known for driving to fast. Just like any group of young adults they had the music up loud and having a good time but Shea was trying to scare all of them by jerking the car back and forth. She did this one to many times and lost control of the car and it spun and hit a tree splitting the car in half. Shea and her boyfriend died on the scene, Emily was rushed to the hospital where she later passed away, and they other young man survived. None of them had been drinking or under the influence of anything.

It has been hard on everyone who knew them because both girls were full of energy and could make you smile when you were down. I hadn't seen Shea in a long time and regret that I didn't have a lot of contact with her after high school. But recently I have been remembering different times that I was able to share with Emily. One of those times was the last time I was able to go to church camp. We went to Crossing at Cedarmore that year. After worship we went down to our meeting area to talk with Frank about what all had been said in the message that night and just to reflect on things that day. There was a big storm that came through and we were stuck there for a long time. Emily was the type of person who could eat all the time and never gain any weight. Everyone had been talking and cutting up and then we noticed that Emily wasn't around. We all turned around and looked and she had found some donuts and was trying to hide them from us all but Emily wasn't that good at hiding things.

Also that year for some strange reason we didn't have enough beds for all of us girls so we thought hey its camp and we are supposed to be bonding so lets all push out bunk beds together and make one big bed. So that year we did and some how Emily always got in the crack and would yell out in the middle of the night HELP I'M FALLING DOWN!!!!

Yesterday would have been Emily's 20th birthday and her parents wanted to do something for it. So they invited her friends and just people who knew Emily and loved her to come out and celebrate with them at her grave site. I was a little skeptical about it because I wasn't for sure what we would be doing but I'm so glad that I did go. Her family had gotten balloons that said Happy Birthday on them and we could write her a little note on the balloons if we wanted to. We all sang happy birthday to her and then let the balloons go. It was so pretty seeing them all in the sky together and the really neat thing was that when we did let them go its like they all gathered together before floating away. And the whole way up they all stayed together.

It was something that I had never experienced before but something really awesome. Its was a celebration of her life and how she touched us. I know that Emily is up in Heaven having a great time! I can't wait until I get up there and see her beautiful smile again and get to ask her if she ever found out the answer to her question; "If God took the rib out of Adam to make Eve then does Adam have a bellybutton and is that how we got them?"



This is Emily's tombstone with her writing and her drawings. I think this is the coolest thing I have ever seen! Love you EMILY!