My freshman year of college, I met two people who would change my life forever. We weren’t just friends, we were family. We all had a past, all had hurts and things that had happened. But college was a fresh start. A blank page in the stories of our lives.
I met Kirbie the first day I moved onto campus, Highland Community College was the setting in which we found ourselves. I went to see my best friend, Ashley, who I’d known essentially my whole life. Little did I know God has a special plan for Ashley’s roommate and I. Kirbie was crazy. Hyper, full of life, and always ready to party. She loved life loud, exactly like her laugh. She and I became fast friends. Partly because we were so different. Partly because I was at their dorm all the time.
The following few days were a blur of orientations and syllabi, introductions and the beginning of a new journey.
The first day of Photography I, I met Morgan. Morgan was rock and roll, and had the coolest sense of style. She didn’t care what people thought, and was a hell of an artist in every medium she touched. I wanted to be her friend. Over the course of all of a week, we became fast friends as well.
I can’t remember the first time the three of us hung out, but we were all art majors, so we saw each other all the time. The three of us became a tribe of sorts. Painting and creating and hearing one another out. I saw the places they were from. I spent a few weekends with Morgan at her parents’ house, and a weekend in the town Kirbie was from as well. I saw the settings of their stories.
On my 19th birthday, February 28, 2008, I got my first ink. It was freezing cold. The three of us had been talking about getting some matching tattoos for awhile, but I didn’t know how serious we really were about it. We went to Independent Tattoo Company in St. Joseph, Missouri, decided on stars and colors. The next thing I knew, I had a stencil on my foot and heard a tattoo gun. Five minutes later, there it was. Three small stars on my right foot forever, a symbol of loyalty between three best friends.
Three stars might seem like a small thing, a stupid first tattoo three 19 year olds decided on without really thinking. But it’s deeper than you think.
God taught me a lot through Kirbie and Morgan. God taught me loyalty and kindness, mental health and simply being. There were things that happened to each of us that year, and we simply needed one another. Sometimes it was just watching a feel-good movie because we needed to laugh through sad tears. Sometimes it was a long tight hug, one of us telling another that things might not be okay right then, but that they would be. They are loyal to those they love, and that is the top thing I will always remember them for.
The tattoo today also reminds me of the twelfth verse in Ecclesiastes four states: And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
While this wasn’t the reason for getting the tattoo, it reminds me of the trinity. God has always existed in the trinity—in community. Which also means that community is important, that we are not meant to live life alone. Jesus has his people, his tribe, if you will, the twelve. Even within the twelve, he had his BFFs. People are not more important than God—they are creations of God, and are, therefore, important. We need accountability and we need one another.
Though we haven’t stayed in touch well over the years, we do still touch base with one another. I also know that if I were walking through a hard time, I could call either of them and they’d drop what they were doing to talk and laugh and cry with me on the phone. Those are good friends.
We were all reunited six years ago when I graduated from K-State. Kirbie flew in for a week from Pennsylvania just to watch me walk across the stage in Bramlage Colosseum. Morgan drove in from Kansas City to be at my party. With her then very young daughter, Charlotte. It brought tears to my eyes to have us all together again. It didn’t seem real. So much life happened to all of us since we had last seen one another. No doubt our next reunion will be the same.
