What the Life and Death of a Friend Taught Me About Unconditional Love

My cousin Jayla, the owner of this blog, and I had discussed last month that I should write a blog post for my 26th birthday. I spent some days trying to figure out exactly what I was going to write about but then my world was forever changed shortly after. As many people in my life already know, I tragically lost one of my best friends, Jordan Daniels, a couple weeks ago. For weeks I’ve been racking my brain for some sort of meaning or purpose behind her death. Sadly, but not surprisingly, I’ve come up short with answers. However, during my quest, there are some realizations I’ve recently had about our time together that have brought me some sense of peace. For the past four years, Jordan always found a way to make my birthday special in some form or fashion. Therefore, I felt it was only right to celebrate this birthday honoring her and the lessons that our friendship has taught me about love.

Platonic soulmates exist

Growing up, I always associated soulmates with romantic relationships; two people meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after. That was until I met Jordan. Technically speaking, she and I officially met in 2005 at St. Joseph’s Academy where we attended school together for four years. However, in 2018 we had the chance to reconnect when we both ended up working at the same school.

From the first day of working together, I truly felt like she and I had been friends our entire lives. She and I had so many things in common and clicked instantly (Something that’s super rare for me. I can be kind of awkward when I first meet people). Our staff would regularly have happy hours, where she and I would find ourselves staying hours after the rest of the staff left, just talking about any and everything; one thing about me and Jordan, we NEVER ran out of anything to talk about. Whether we were discussing fashion, pop culture, reality TV, sending tik toks, or making one of our infamous life plans, we always had some topic of discussion. I truly have never met someone who was like me in so many different aspects, or someone else who got excited to go outside just to do things like go to Target or Trader Joe’s together. We even dressed like each other. More often than not we discovered we had the same piece of clothing in our closets or shopping carts online, or we would unknowingly coordinate everywhere we went. It used to annoy us, but now I would give anything to mistakenly match with my good sis one more time.

We also both had the natural ability to bring groups of people together. Our outings sparked a friendship amongst three of our other co-workers. We began inviting them to our happy hour escapades, which turned into weekly dinners and weekend nights spent on Allen. We formed our own little family at work that to this day is still going strong despite living in different states. She and I also meshed our outside friend groups. Her childhood friends Tia and Autumn along with my cousin Jayla, best friend Courtney and our shared friend Lyndian would regularly come together for brunch, dinner and gym dates. She and I just had a knack for bringing people together, which now knowing what the future had in store for us was definitely part of a greater scheme. We didn’t know it at the time, but all of us were truly going to need to lean on one another while suffering one of the most unimaginable losses. So, while I may or may not get to experience a romantic soulmate, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a platonic one, and that is something I do not take for granted.

Friends are truly your chosen family

I spent a lot of my life trying to find friends to reciprocate my energy. I found myself constantly giving to people and not getting that in return. Jordan was one of the first friends to change my perspective on friendships. I used to always try to be this grandiose and strong friend who was superwoman for all of her friends. I had a fear that if I showed who I truly was, I wouldn’t be accepted. During our four years of friendship, Jordan saw every single ugly piece of me. She saw the anxious part of me, the depressed part of me, the undisciplined part of me. She helped me wipe my tears, talked me through my worries, took care of me when I was sick, treated me when I was broke, gave me the benefit of the doubt when I had an attitude. Jordan taught me that when you really love someone, you don’t only love them for their good, you love them in spite of their bad. When you really love someone you sacrifice to see them happy. When you really love someone you don’t solely think about what they can do for you, but what you can do to see them smile.

Seeing that it is my birthday, one of my fondest memories with Jordan is my 25th birthday. I decided that I wanted to go on a trip; we had all been stuck in Buffalo because of COVID and I knew

everyone needed a well deserved pick me up. Jordan was my right hand man for the entire trip. She helped me with all the planning, made sure that I was greeted with balloons upon arrival to our hotel, and was there for every meltdown and hissy fit. See, Jordan and I were both the type that didn’t know how to go with the flow; if we had a plan, we wanted that plan to go exactly how we envisioned it, otherwise our entire mood would be ruined. But, anyone who has ever been on a trip knows that nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Anytime there was a hiccup and Jordan saw so much as an inkling of me being upset, she came to my rescue with a backup plan, even if that meant walking in the rain to get sour cream (it was really plain greek yogurt lol) for my tacos because the restaurant we were at didn’t have any. She was constantly reassuring me that her purpose for being on that trip was to make sure that I felt happy and celebrated the entire time. That was the type of friend Jordan was. She treated all of her friends in the same manner that she treated her blood sisters. She and I would often talk about our love lives (or lack thereof) and how we always feared not having that grand love story that some people are blessed enough to have. But her passing has shown me that I have experienced a grand love after all. Jordan loved me without conditions. She didn’t love me for what I could do for her or what she thought I could be, but she loved me for ME and was willing to go to the ends of the earth to see me happy. You expect this from your parents and family, but when it comes from someone who CHOOSES to be a part of your life even though they don’t have to be, now that’s something special. And while it was cut short much sooner than I anticipated, I feel incredibly blessed to have gotten the chance to experience this kind of love from a friend, because not everyone in this life gets that chance.

Love never disappears, it simply transcends

Jordan is no longer physically with me on earth, but the love I have for her and the love she showed others isn’t gone. I love her as much on July 20th as I did on July 3rd before her passing. It will be 2030 and I’ll still love her and feel her love. When you truly love someone, that love doesn’t disappear; it may change form or not be as easily accessible, but it will always exist. When listening to and reading all of the beautiful sentiments about her life, there was one thing that everyone experienced when interacting with Jordan and that was love. She was able to touch and impact so many people in her 27 years, and this impact will last way beyond her lifetime. People will never forget the kindness she showed, the laughter she brought, or the comfort she gave. She was the walking embodiment of “Love your neighbor as yourself.” She even showed kindness to strangers and people she didn’t care for, which is the ultimate form of love. It’s one thing to love people who love you back, but to love people who don’t is the sign of a truly good person. In my life, if I can show even a fraction of the love that Jordan did it will be more than enough.

You don’t get to keep people forever, just experience them.

I often wondered how Jordan, myself, and our group of friends got so close so fast. There were periods of time where we spent six days straight together; we were going on trips out of the country together after only being good friends for a few months; we had countless sleepovers, outings, movie nights, park dates, workouts, anything you can name we most likely did. I realize now this was all by design. We did things in four years that take some people twenty years of friendship to achieve. I guess God knew that we would need these memories for when she was gone. Memories are what have been keeping me afloat these past couple weeks. Whenever I feel down I think of something funny or stupid that we did/said, or pull out my phone to relive the moment via video or picture; and each and every time it brings the biggest smile to my face. Jordan was never mine to keep, she was given to me for a season, and what a beautiful season it was. The people in our life don’t belong to us; they are part of our path, blessings that are given to us for certain periods of time. Some people are around for shorter periods of time, but their impact isn’t any less intense than the people who are around for a lifetime.

So, while God gave me Jordan for what I deemed to be far too short of a period of time, I am grateful that I was able to know one of the kindest, most genuine and beautiful humans to grace this earth. I’m beyond blessed to have experienced real, unconditional love.

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