Help FloMo raise money

Team Ballerina-President 🩰 the Supermodel ⭐ & the Hairless-Chicken 🐣

Size 4 satin toe pointe… with frayed pink ribbons.

Loyal. Gentle. Bright, true, and kind. The kind of soul who anchored everyone around her. Who everyone loved. An irreplaceable best forever-friend whose presence made the world feel steady. Pinkie swears, and belly laughs, sleepovers, and unfinished dreams, hours of phone calls, inside jokes that still echo, and day-long bike ride adventures to nowhere.

Her name was Lauren. 🧑‍🩰

1992. The dancer who would save the world. A whole big life stolen decades before her time.

Size 7 high cork platform tangerine heels. 

Feisty. Bold. Bossy and protective. If she loved you, you had a champion for life who’d stand between you and whatever the world threw your way. (But touch her makeup, closet, and her clothes, though… run!) Our tattletale. Our sitter, our watcher, our ride, our guide to the world of music, 80’s hair bands, Reunion concerts, and groupie parties. Her big sister.

Her name was Elisa. 💃

2002. The grief of loss too much; one day it came for her too.

Size 11W 90s kid classic black Converse high tops. And floppy untied laces.

Born sick and preemie, scrawny, without a stitch of hair—made up for it by age 10, rivaling only Robin Williams or Koko the furry gorilla. Only 5’8" but supposed to have been a 6'4" Clark Kent, though his massive clown feet never did grow into his frame. Video games and Mario. Brother-sister fist fights and beanbag chair death matches. Magic: The Gathering and Pog. Was the Grapevine Mills Mall Yo-Yo champion. Pirated movies and burning CDs. Plotting to open our presents together 3 AM Christmas morning.

His name was Garrett. 🎮

2025. After losing his best friend, the crushing weight of grief became too heavy to carry. And we lost him too.

They weren’t never just a 2-inch headline.

A forgotten obituary page.

A cold, clinical overdose report.

A small Town’s cautionary tale.

Or a whispered-about tragic end.

Three beautiful souls. With favorite songs, and terrible jokes, big dreams, and ordinary Tuesdays. Three lives touched by heroin, opioids, heartbreak, and loss. Three pairs of shoes left behind, and three soles so much bigger than how they ended.

They were Lauren. Elisa. Garrett. They were here. And they were loved.

So many more footprints they should have had the chance to leave. Oh, the places they would go! And although their shoes are long gone now, the footprints they left, in this Town—and on my heart—won't ever fade away.

Once, there were four of us. But we're still a team. And their stories are still worth telling.

So this year, I walk for them. 👟

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please consider donating to Winning The Fight to help keep other families whole. Come walk with us. Or simply just speak their names. Remember their stories. Walk for the pairs of shoes that no longer can. Help make sure that the souls we've lost are never reduced to how they died.

Because every life has a story. And every story deserves to be remembered.

“All Stories Matter.”

With love and fierce remembrance,
KJA / JKC / FloMoChalkArt 🧚‍♀️🎨