My Inner Allen, My Eternal Sosé

(view original article) Awake with freakish jetlag at 4:55am, there is nothing to do but to wake up and face the swirling thoughts in my mind. I chose the cathartic path of writing to empty them onto paper (or pixels as they were) as has been so frequently suggested the last few days. But I’m not going to just write about my sadness. I have a different thought today.

Yes, I lost two dear friends of mine, who’s lives intertwined so harmoniously with mine in the last few months, to a terrible car accident. As my husband so eloquently stated, a part of me died with them. It truly did.

I sat face to side-face with Allen in the last couple of months for what felt like ultimate synchronicity. We started to operate as one unit, only separated by the few skills we did not share that perfectly complimented each other. Allen inspired me. And I know I inspired him. But what he didn’t know is that I needed inspiring more than him. I lost my focus, and he pulled me back in.

And then there was Sosé full of grace. Her charming smile was a window into her beautiful soul. She poured out relentless generousity onto those all around her, always in style. I find myself asking, how did this happen to these people? With so much life and inspiration between them, the world lost more than it knows on May 10.

I do not want to sit in sadness anymore. Sosé’s brother so perfectly stated to me the other day, “I am now living in their sunshine.” And it’s true. They are not here to hold us, comfort us, joke with us, inspire us. But no doubt all of us, even people who didn’t know them, feel the legacy they left behind. And though I consciously felt a change within me prior to their passing, I feel it more now. I will not sit and wait anymore.

Most people, including me, come to Armenia with such idealism, hope and drive. All these things often dry up when faced with the realities on the ground… corruption, poverty, fear and hopelessness. I have struggled with it so much as I faced my hardest times in my own homeland. I share those realities with anyone who comes to Armenia, not to tear them down, but perhaps test their drive. Allen and Sosé never wavered. I told Allen the harshest realities I know, and he countered it with real solutions as if it was so simple. His greatest idea was that the power of this country is with the women, and if Armenia wants a true revolution, the women should simply go on strike. It was so beautiful in it’s simplicity and briliance.

I had the opportunity to absorb so much of his brilliant mind. So much that I no longer have the right to sit back and watch the show unfold infront of me. None of us do. We owe it to them, and we owe it to ourselves to not cower in fear, but to stand tall and take back what is ours… our lives… our culture… our pursuit of happiness. I’d like to think that the part of me that died with them was my apathy and complacency. What is left is a voice Allen left in my soul, and a beauty and grace Sosé has inspired to share her spirit of generosity with the world.