Tessa Shaffer

There__ something about the amount of time that has gone by that makes her feel like a survivor. There__ something in the way that following her heart, despite it being perpetually broken, has made her feel like a success. And something about letting go of pain and letting love in has made her feel happy again.

She thought about how in that moment life was perfect because it was simple. One truck, a world asleep, and a million stars.It didn__ matter where they were going. She was just existing.

You__e got to trust yourself. Be gentle with yourself. And listen to yourself. You__e the only person who can get you through this now. You__e the only one who can survive your story, the only one who can write your future.All you__e got to do, when you__e ready, is stand up, {and begin again.}

But in all of the sadness, when you__e feeling that your heart is empty, and lacking, You__e got to remember that grief isn__ the absence of love. Grief is the proof that love is still there.

Death will paint everything a different shade of remorse. You__l feel guilty that you__e still breathing. But you can__ stop.You__l feel guilty for wanting to laugh again. And it will be awful the first time that you do. You__l feel guilty for just about everything at first.And someday, at some point, you__l start to feel guilty . . . for forgetting to feel guilty.But of all Heaven__ lessons, guilt isn__ one of them. You don__ need to hold on to it. It doesn__ need to be a practice and it shouldn__ be your life. Heaven would never approve of your guilt.Because Heaven has no regrets.

Hershey Pennsylvania was self-proclaimed as the __weetest Place On Earth,_ but less advertised than chocolate, it was also home to one of the state__ largest Children__ Hospitals. The streets lined with Hershey Kiss__haped streetlamps that led excited children and families on vacation to chocolate tour rides and rollercoasters were the same exact streets that led anxious children and families to x-rays and MRIs on the worsts days of their lives. Chocolate was being created on the same street that childhood diseases were being diagnosed. And that was life. The sweetest of sensations and the deepest of devastations live next door to each other.

Heaven left a hole in your heart. But it__ up to you to choose if that hole will be filled with pain, anger, and the eternal darkness of loss . . . Or if you will choose to fill it with light and love and have that hole shine out of you like a spotlight into your life, keeping their memory alive . . .{It__ up to you.}

Because the best gift in life, is just having someone to drink hot chocolate with

The only thing worse than not knowing where she belonged...was knowing where she didn't.

Nothing you did could have changed anything. And that being angry and blaming yourself for not being able to control the past or the future is only going to hurt worse. If you keep thinking like this, you will only be re-inventing pain.Heaven would tell you that it__ just a little rain. And it__ not the rain that kills you, it__ the pain of wanting to control the sun.

To him, freedom was greater than love. She hated that. Because she had always thought that love was freedom.