This is kind of a long story that I have needed to tell for awhile but just couldn't. Thank you to Shelly at Can I Borrow Your Life for nudging me.

In August of 2003 I lost my dear friend, Sandy, in a car crash. It was my first experience with a close, unexpected death. I took it hard. I dropped about 10 pounds in two weeks because I forgot to eat and wasn't hungry. My thoughts were consumed with Sandy and what she was and what the world, my world, would be like without her in it? Had I appreciated her enough? (no) Did she know I loved her? (yes) What would her kids do? (she had 4) What would her parents do? (she was their only) My mind just would not stop.

She worked right beside me every day. One evening her family came in and cleaned out her area without our knowing. I walked into our small office the following morning and it was such a shock to look over there and see nothing of her! I burst into sobbing and just turned around and went home without saying a word.

I really started thinking about the value of life and how we live it and how we should be living it. I thought about Sandy and how she was one of those people that wasn't very involved in her church and didn't go to church all the time and I really didn't know how deep her faith was. But she lived the way we ought to.

She was kind to everyone without exception, even those who didn't have her best interest at heart (like her Ex). She knew the name of every salesman or repairman that walked in, if not when he arrived then by the time he left. ...And how many kids he had and probably their names, too!

People she barely knew would stop by just to say hello to her and she was never too busy for them no matter how much she had on her plate. We joked about "Here comes your new best friend" when we saw some of them walking up to the door, but that's the thing... She treated everyone, and I mean it, everyone, as if they were her family.

Why couldn't I do that? Me, who professed to be a Christian (with far more involvement and spirituality than she). I knew she had it right by the Great Commandment and I was still struggling with it all.

Three weeks after Sandy's death Vince and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We took a weekend getaway to Lawrence, Kansas. With all the thoughts of life and death and such I had also been reevaluating my marriage.

Vince and I are incredibly different in temperament and personality and even the way we think. We usually get to the same place but it often takes some negotiating. I decided it was worth it. It's kind of like that "Jerry McGuire" movie where he says "You complete me." I've heard people make wisecracks about that statement but it is why we are still hanging in there. When we do work together it can be amazing and wonderful. I wanted that to happen more.

While we were in the little college town that weekend, I got my tattoo. It was a plan, not spontaneous. I wanted a dragonfly rising from the water. I had designed the line of water with a "V" and an "S" gently curved into it. Whenever I looked at it I would be reminded that I love Vince and also to carry on Sandy's example for living.

A butterfly is too pretty and gentle for me. A dragonfly is born in the water and changes into a predatory flying insect. It is in the "good bug" category since it consumes huge numbers of nasty mosquitos. It is an amazing insect to me, to be so bold and tough and so full of life as it darts around the ponds ands fields. I am so not-prissy or gentle or beautiful (Is that why God gave me 4 sons?). I thought the dragonfly was a much better representation of who I am. No, I'm not a predator but I'll fight for what I believe in.

So, now you know the secret of my tattoo. Many people have asked why the tat and why the dragonfly but I never fill in the details. Now you know. (Shhhh~don't tell anyone.)

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Okay, did any of you notice that my tattoo is not really a dragonfly? Most people think it is though and I wish it was so ... They told me it was a dragonfly and I was so excited and scared at the time that I didn't notice the antennae, which dragonflies do not have, and the wings are shaped wrong, too. Haha. A dragonfly that's not right. The jokes on me! I'm just pretending to know what's going on but in reality I am just skimming the surface. How just.

The tattoo is perfect for me.
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~P.S. Vince and I just hit #29 and still rollin'