Remembering Melissa

Grief is something I haven’t had to experience to this degree before and it’s hard to express how exceptional of a person my friend Melissa was and even harder to imagine my life without her in it. And anyone who was lucky enough to know her feels this way.

She made all our lives so much better with her patience, kindness and selfless nature. She was spontaneous, inspiring me to travel more and say yes to new experiences and new people. There’s no one I know who lived life to its fullest as she did.

Melia (as we called her growing up, pronounced Mell-Lihh) died unexpected last week in Atlanta where she lived. I feel like writing this out and sharing it here forces me to accept her fate and process it even though as I type it I cry.

Who She Was

Melissa was a magnet, attracting friends from across the world. You couldn’t help but be pulled in by her positive energy, her laugh and vivid storytelling (she could remember every detail from every dream.) Her career with Delta took her around the world and she never said no to an adventure, making a new friend or doing something spontaneous like a last minute concert out of state or something as mundane but special to me—flying from Vegas to Lansing to see the Hobbit in the theater (We loved Lord of the Rings.)

She lived such an exciting life and I’d bother her until she told me who she met and befriended while traveling or working on sports team charter flights. She’d never once brag about her adventures or who she’d meet and only shared stories with me until I wore her down. I lived vicariously through her adventures.

She loved food. The girl could eat and when we traveled together we always prioritized food, indulging in every carb possible. But she also loved fitness, experimenting with different work out classes, but she found her calling with yoga, barre and aerial silks. She was naturally skilled with her extreme upper body strength and mastered so many techniques with aerial. She’d share videos of her performances and I was always so captivated.

Melia was fiercely independent. She could easily drive across the country by herself, enjoy a weekly movie alone and keep herself busy in whichever city she lived in or visited. She was happy to do things on her own if that’s what it took. I always admired her strength and courage to chase after what made her happy and just do it herself.

She was the kindest and funniest person. She loved music and she was always down to drive or fly anywhere for a show. She loved baseball and I’m pretty sure she visited every baseball stadium in the U.S. She was so laidback and down for anything. She was there for you whenever you needed her and she always had a story to tell.

I’ll miss her forever.