First words.

Never did I imagine that I would be processing through the loss of someone so close to me - especially at age 24. Yet here I am, a month and a half after losing my brother to his journey with cancer. The last few weeks have flown by and leave me feeling at a total loss. 

Did this really happen? Is he really gone? There's no way. 

I get lost in denial often and what pulls me back is the sympathy I get from people around me. Their kindness is like an alarm that goes off reminding me that this isn't a dream, it's real life. I don't think my heart is ready for real life; but I guess no one is really ever 'ready' to lose someone.

I knew from pretty much the first day after we heard about Mikael's diagnosis that I was going to be in charge of some sort of social media outreach to keep people informed. I could never keep it to just the facts as I am a words person, and so I went with it, allowing my heart to flow for literally hundreds of people to read. 

I remember us talking to Mikael about this one day, filling him in about the blog and the response we'd gotten from it. His response was, "well, you always wanted a blog, Marisa." He was right. But even now as I type that out my heart breaks because even if it meant never having a blog - something I have dreamed about for a long time - I would give anything to have my brother back. 

Reality is cruel because this will never be - I will never get him back. Not in this lifetime.

Losing him has put into perspective A LOT of things. One being how short life really is. I have many dreams always burning in my heart as I attempt to figure life out and the whole, "growing up" process. There is always a fear tied to them; fear which stops me from doing anything about these dreams and desires.

I'm done with being afraid. Fear is what keeps you stagnant in this life.

This blog isn't like the other one as it is about me and not my brothers journey, yet truthfully they are now tied together. So I will say this: my brother lived his life without fear. I mean, he probably had moments of second guessing but that's just part of the process. Even after having lived only 31 short years he left a legacy. He saw life as something more than what it often presented itself as. 

And that's me. Life has so much to offer. Yes, our time here isn't forever, I am very aware of that especially now. But I have always felt that there's something more than what is being presented to me as what should be done and how life should be lived. 

My heart is very broken but somehow there is something redemptive in this. That even through this grief and sorrow that I face daily is so incredibly heavy, I can still step forward and attempt to go after what I believe in so greatly. Part of that is my faith, my relationship with Jesus, but the other part is also this. This being this blog, this website that I am attempting to create. 

Something I said at Mikael's memorial service was this: 

I also know that Mikael would say something to me along the lines of, “use this grief, this sorrow, this brokenness. Use it to capture, to write, to create. Use it to inspire and to only further the kingdom. Don’t let it stop you. Keep going.”

This is that. This is me taking all of the emotions of right now and turning them into something. Taking the incredible sadness I feel and attempting to use it to inspire people. Beauty from ashes. 

This life is bigger than what we see. It goes beyond our wildest imagination. I have a lot of questions I would like answered but I know that most of them will probably never be fully answered until the day I meet my Saviour face to face. But by then, truthfully, it won't matter because I will then see from Heaven's perspective. 

But this is now and now for me is this blog.

These are my first official words on a website made just for me. I'll be honest in saying this is terrifying - putting yourself out there like this. But I'll keep doing it for my own sake, because I know I need to. I have to. I haven't gone through all of this for nothing. So here's me turning it into something.

From my heart to yours, 

Marisa.