I was fifteen when it started, when my eyes were opened to the fact that death is real. That any day could be your last with someone. That people die without fully living life. That it affects everyone. Even me.
It was the end of my freshman year of high school, the beginning of June. I was on my way to school around 6:50 AM, when I heard the news on the radio. There had been a fatal motorcycle accident, and those involved were my best friend’s dad and his girlfriend. The announcement did not say if one or both of them were gone. All I knew was that I didn’t want it to be true. I picked up my phone and called home crying. My mom could barely make out what I was saying. After finally putting my mumbled words together, she said, “Go to the library, and wait for me. I will be there in twenty minutes.” There I sat, on the curb of the library parking lot, praying that all of this was some big joke, some misunderstanding. I was just with Frank and Leslie two nights ago. There was no way they could be gone. Twenty minutes later, it became a reality. Leslie was gone. I had no clue how to handle it, and even worse, had no clue if my best friend was going to be okay.
Leslie’s death was an eye opener. My best friend and I got through it together. When I wanted to be weak, I had to be strong for my best friend who saw her second mom’s life flash before her. Together—and with the support of our family and friends—we learned that the pain from death was great, but we knew life would go on. While I had become aware of the realities of death, I still lived in denial like everyone else does. It won’t happen to me.
But, two months later, it did. One of my best friends from freshman year, Lance, went into cardiac arrest during a fun run, and after two days of fighting, passed away. He was just fifteen years old, and he was gone. Without even having a sip of alcohol, having sex, graduating, going to college, getting married, having children, he was gone. I could not wrap my head around the idea. Luckily, we had an amazing teacher who got a group of 30+ of Lance’s friends together and helped us to pass two laws in Connecticut requiring Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) at sporting events to help save lives of other people like Lance. AEDs are a portable electronic device that is capable of treating cardiac arrest through the application of electrical therapy to allow the heart to reestablish effective rhythm. After two years of working together to not only pass these laws, but also raise thousands of dollars to help schools in need purchase AEDs to increase the chances of saving lives, and putting on an annual fun run, I was learning to accept Lance’s loss. And two years later when my friend Richard died of cardiac arrest at a wrestling match, it was much easier to cope. I felt like I had made something good come out of their deaths. Maybe this was God’s way of motivating me to help others, and save thousands of lives along the way?
Two years later, I was on a run with my cross-country friend, discussing tattoos we wanted to get in honor of Lance. Margaret, my friend since age 5, had been in a texting and driving accident—something I do all the time—and was hospitalized in critical condition, not likely to make it. I called my best friend Alexandra, who confirmed the news: “Yes, it’s true, we have to say goodbye to her tonight. She isn’t going to make it.” I sat at home until Alexandra was back from the hospital and went to her house where we spent the next 24 hours huddled on the couch with our best friends, trying to cope with the fact that our friend was gone. The pain was greater than anything I had ever felt before. Texting and driving, a quarter mile from her house without wearing her seat belt Why couldn’t I go back and tell her to stop? Why had this happened to her—the most hardworking, caring, and outgoing person I had ever met? None of it made sense.
The next morning we got a call from Jane, Margaret’s mother, that she was making progress and could potentially survive. Alexandra, her mother, and I packed up the car and headed to Yale Hospital’s critical care unit. We were able to discuss the road we had ahead with her boyfriend, family and friends: months or years of hospital and rehab trips to try and get her back to as “normal” as we possibly could. It was going to be hard, but we knew that together we could get through this hard time together.
The next day I was at Richard’s older brother’s 30th birthday party allowing myself to escape the thoughts of Margaret, when I got the call. “She’s gone. She’s gone. She didn’t make it…” Alexandra said from the other side of the phone. I fell to the floor in the middle of the party and broke into tears. My dad quickly put me in the car and drove me to Alexandra’s with his hand in mine the whole way. The next two weeks of my life seem like one big blur. Going through the motions, but not being mentally present for anything. But my five best friends and I got through it together. We talked about all of our amazing memories of her, all the great things she did, and all the amazing ways she had impacted us. We slowly shifted back into our lives, and made sure Margaret’s memory would never fade. This had been the worst death I had ever experienced. She wasn’t just a friend; she was someone I had known all my life, and someone who I admired. But I knew that, after 4 deaths in 2 years, this had to be the end.
That May however, it happened again. My cousin William had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I was on my senior skip day when I got the news. At this point, I decided I wanted to be numb. Drinking all day for three days continually, I decided avoiding the reality was the best way to handle the situation. Only, this was even harder to cope with. My dad, for the first time in his whole life, did not leave his bed for days. William was not only like a best friend and son to my dad, but he had also helped my dad found his company. His death meant walking into work and facing the reality he was never coming back, each and every day. I decided I had to be strong: not only for my dad, but for myself as well. If my dad could get out of bed and move past this, so could I. And I needed to do the same to help my dad overcome this hard time. As a family, we moved forward knowing that was what William would have wanted us to do.
Just two months later, moving on proved difficult again. This time, my boyfriend’s best friend, Tommy, was killed in a motorcycle accident. My role during the weeks following Tommy’s death was to help my boyfriend to cope with the pain. While this was incredibly hard for me, and only worsened my fear of death, I had been through this enough times to know that the only way for us to move forward was for the strong to help the weak. And being weak wasn’t an option for me. The impact of death was gravely growing on me though.
I started to fear death in every moment of my life. I developed anxiety towards it. I saved every voicemail I received, and always thought when I said goodbye to people, it could be the last. The tendencies had been growing since Frank and Leslie, but were starting to see a whole new height after Tommy. However, after each death, I learned to live more and more by the quote “Live each day like it is your last.” The deaths had been extremely hard, but I had not seen a dramatic effect on my life as a whole. I was still happy. I woke up every day with a smile on my face. I was just more aware of death than most people.
Sophomore year of college, however, everything changed. My friend Jessica from high school passed away from a drug overdose. For some reason, this death put me over the edge. For the first time, I was not handling her death with my friends and family at home, people who knew her. Instead, any time she was mentioned, she was my “dead friend.” After so many deaths, I thought this one would be easy. Unfortunately, it was the opposite. My anxiety doubled, and I was losing a sense of happiness. I was always scared, and found myself crying all the time. Jessica’s death brought up all the others. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. If there is a god, and there are purposes to people’s lives, then why were all of my loved ones leaving? Why had I seen so many people come and go, without even truly living life? I began to experience an all-time low. I was unable to concentrate on school, my sorority, or my boyfriend. I felt alone and sick all the time. I felt like no one understood me.
I decided to see a school therapist who recommended anti-depressants on the first day. I have always been against such medication, but I honestly did not see any other option. After talking it over with my mom, I decided to try therapy on its own for a few weeks. While I loved my therapy sessions, they were hard: hours of hysterically crying and talking about all of the emotions I had pushed away for so many years. It was hard and after three weeks, I still felt lost in the world. Around this time, my dad called me and told me he was picking me up the next morning to take me to our house in Florida.
Thank God for this trip. This is where I learned to take these deaths and allow them to shape me into a better person. “They are gone, there is nothing you can do but be happy you are still alive,” my dad said to me over lunch. My dad lost his mom at age 13 and his best friend at age 33. That, in addition to losing William two years prior, meant my dad had seen enough death in his life as well. He told me that I had to learn to be happy that I was blessed in knowing so many angels. That God chooses people for a purpose. He told me to live my life to the extent they did, fully, every single day so that if something were to ever happen to me, I could be sure that I was leaving a mark behind. I was now determined to live my life, and be proud of every second of it.
I have done just that. I have overcome numerous health struggles in the past year, all with a smile on my face. I have been grateful for every morning that I wake up, and take each day as a blessing. And today I hope that anyone else who has experienced death will try to see it the same way. You knew an angel. You are blessed. And knowing them taught you the life you should live. A full one. A happy one. One with no regrets. Do not waste time on small things. Someone out there just lost a friend, a parent, a lover. Someone out there doesn’t have a life anymore. Someone out there doesn’t have a home, a family, a dream. Live your life to the fullest, and make the most of every day. And if and when you see death passing by, smile, because you were lucky enough to have known someone who was able to live his or her whole life, in less than 40, 30, or 20 years.