This makes me so happy. Thank you. It's all exactly as she would have wanted.
It was kind of funny; when I did a podcast interview about Jade, I felt so pressured because all I could hear was her voice in the back of my head, telling me that I better make her episode "the best episode EVER", lol. After it aired, I received an email from the podcast owner that said, "I'm not sure what happened, but your episode is the most popular episode our show has ever had. It has almost double the listens of any other episode." All I could do was smile and think, "I did it, Jade." It probably seems really strange for anyone to think that I had some weird competition thing going on over something so tragic, lol, but I think anyone who knew Jade would agree that she would expect nothing less.
One of her friends posted a conversation on FB the other day that the two of them had had, and it was SUCH a Jade conversation, lol. Jade was telling her friend how sometimes she wishes she could be someone else so that she could hang out with herself, lol. Her friend agreed, and Jade was like, "Let's switch! Do you know how to do that?" When her friend said no, Jade wrote out the ad that she would place on Craigslist, seeking "some wizard or whatever that would be able to perform a Freaky Friday style switcheroo, in order that she and her best friend could experience the magnitude of their own awesomeness in it's purest form".
I told the podcast host, when asked what Jade would want for me, now that she is gone, and I answered her honestly. I said that I know Jade would want me to be happy, and she would want me to be there for her kids, share with them who she was and how much she loved them, but.. I also think that she would expect a very lengthy mourning period first, lol.
She would have loved to observe her funeral and all the people that showed up and what they said and did, and what pictures of her were selected, lol.
She would love that people have tattooed themselves in tribute to her.
And she would love this.
To take these opportunities to do exactly as you said, to talk about addiction, about loss, about Jade and the mark she made on us all is almost all that I can do for her now, as her mother. I can do everything in my power to keep her name on people's lips and her face in people's minds. Imprint her story on their hearts. I wanted to make her proud with all of these things and I can see that I have.
I will spend the rest of my life doing these things in whatever ways I can, for as long as anyone will listen.
Thank you for continuing to listen.