So today we had a reporting chapel.
This means that all of the missions trips that traveled abroad this past spring and winter present photos and stories of their trip to the auditorium full of students.
My team met an hour and a half early to talk about what we were going to say and how we could address Monica's absence in a way that honored her as well as the trip.
So that was rough.
It was, however, so nice to be with my team again.  My friends outside of the trip are pretty much at a loss in this situation, as they didn't know Monica or how she sculpted the trip for me.  So it was really great to be with them.
The presentation wasn't too exciting.  We all shook, I stared at my feet so as not to make eye contact with anyone in the audience (and start crying), and we sat down.
I keep expecting this to be over.  This weight and headache and exhaustion and aching. 
I keep thinking that after I leave New Hampshire, after I see people at school, after I meet with my team, after I do the reporting chapel...then it'll be over.
I think I know that Monica isn't coming back.  But these feelings, this indescribable grief, should be going away soon...right?
I thought I would feel better after this chapel for sure.  I saw my group, I talked with them and I cried with Rachel and we talked about Monica and we got up in front of the chapel and talked about Monica and yet I still can't think.  I'm still not hungry.  I'm still exhausted.  I'm still dizzy and shaky and my eyes still won't stop tearing.
On the other hand, I don't want to stop being devastated.  Losing Monica is a tragedy, and if I were to forget that, to get over that, then how much did she really mean to me?
Rachel told me tonight that she was praying with Monica a few days before she died and that Monica was asking Jesus to come back and take her home with him.
I know that she's in heaven, and I know that I'm supposed to be happy that she's with Jesus and that she's not suffering because I know that that's all she ever wanted, but I'm still so angry.
She was only eighteen.
My team is going to her wake tomorrow.  Then her funeral is Thursday morning at a Catholic church which is so bizarre to me because she really really doesn't like or believe in the Catholic church.  And then Friday is the Gordon memorial service.
This whole week is setting us up to say goodbye to Monica.
But what happens then?  No more Facebook statuses about her life, no more mention of her in emails or chapel and soon conversations.
I just really don't want Monica to disappear.  She was too good a person to have that happen to her.
I just miss her.