Cold February Days

On initial glance, "Cold February Days" may come across as a confusing title for a post from a blogger writing in the middle of the Honduran tropics. And though I still spent this past week in shorts and a T-shirt, February fifteenth was cold in a different way. Laying myself down for the night after a regular day working at the hospital, I had a feeling- heard a voice- inside of me asking me to check on an old friend. After a failed attempt to find my friend's Facebook account, a quick Google search confirmed the fearful instinct I felt writhing deep in my stomach...

***

The world said good-bye to a beautiful soul on the twenty-first of January of 2022. It lost a scientist, a creative writer, a poet, an artist, a photographer, a future doctor, a pianist, a food and coffee connoisseur. Her name is Julie, and she lived almost thirty years becoming all of those things while also giving of herself to others as a daughter, a sister, a friend, and so much more.

The last moment I spent with Julie was three years ago when she visited me in Colorado. I had the privilege of watching Julie experience snow for the first time. Having lived most of her life in the desert Southwest and having missed those once-every-few-years and short-lived snowfalls in Tucson, Arizona, Julie literally danced in the streets of downtown Denver as those foreign, white snowflakes fell endlessly from the frosty night sky. When she visited me in person that cold February day years ago, I had no idea she would visit me again on that same exact day some years later. And though her visit this time around was much different as tears replaced snowflakes and memories replaced reality, I could still see Julie's contagious smile and hear her joyful laugh. 

Some might say it is mere coincidence that I learned of Julie's passing on the same day she came to visit me three years ago: February fifteenth. But I knew Julie was a planner, and God has plans too. Amidst my feelings of grief, fear, anger, disbelief, it was their time to let me know that although she is no longer here to experience the transient beauty of frozen water, she reminds me of the eternal beauty that lies beyond.

***

With Julie's absence, discoveries will go undiscovered, books will go unwritten, poems unsung, drawings un-sketched, photos un-captured, patients unrestored, ivory keys untouched, delectable fare unsavored, and snow unappreciated. I have hope that Julie is smiling upon God and all of us with the same joy and awe that she smiled upon those snowflakes falling from the sky on that cold February day.

Thank you for joining me in remembering, thinking of, and praying for my dear friend, Julie.

Julie Huynh (1992 - 2022)