Memories of Rhoni

The purpose of this blog is to write about my life in Denmark. However, every once in a while something so important happens in your home country that it is all you can think about. That for me over the past couple of weeks has been about praying for justice and peace for my cousin Rhoni. I have no doubt that Rhoni has been at peace for the last 3.5 years, as that is just the sort of person she was, but I think her soul would rest a little bit easier knowing that her Mom and Dad and brothers can finally begin to heal.

Memories of her have come flooding back over these past couple of days and my first thought was to write them down in a paper journal, as I did before I moved to Denmark and began writing about my life online. Then I thought, how liberating it would be for others to have a chance to know her, how I knew her. Not as the victim or woman portrayed to be hopelessly in love with a local hero, but as a phenomenal, striking, amazingly beautiful personality of her own.

We were always family, but we became friends shortly after I moved to Chicago in 2001. She had lived there for nearly a decade before I moved to the city, and was many years older, but that didn't stop her from seeking me out and becoming like a big sister to me over the next 8 years. We would meet for brunch or lunch and keep up with each others lives via email throughout the years. We didn't have a regular meeting schedule, but always knew when it was time to see each other again. When we did meet, I was always blown away by her beauty. She radiated it inside and out. The sort of person that you stop and stare at when she walks into a room. People would literally ask me who she was, when we were out together. I'm not sure she ever knew that.

We shared stories of family. She told me I had my mother's eyes and I told her she reminded me of my sister Renee. She told me of her dreams to go into fashion while I was just beginning to figure out mine. The more we talked, the more we realized how similar we were. She was reading about the "Blood Type" diet at the same time I was. We both believed in the benefits of using natural products and eating organic foods. But the one thing that stays with me in our last conversations was our shared belief in a higher purpose, energy, or spiritual realm. A way of living your life where you focused on the good and brought those positive things into your life.

She was in a really good and happy place before she left us. That is the one comfort that I go back to again and again. I hope that good place stays with her in the next realm, and I pray her family can find it again after enough time goes by on earth.