Life is short. Sometimes you need that reminder every once in awhile. I woke up the other day taking for granted how lucky I was to be alive, waking up in my own bed with my roommate and her boyfriend sleeping a couple feet away from me. I was so tired I couldn’t get out of bed, but a girl from my sorority who I barely knew didn’t get to wake up that morning. I went about my day like everything was fine, then I got a text from a sister, then more texts, then Facebook updates, then emails, then more Facebook updates. I shut down, I didn’t know what to do.
From my personal experience, all the death I have dealt with was inevitable. My mother’s mother was in an old folks home for 3 years, and I was only 9 when she died. One of my uncles died from cancer after 9 months, and the most recent death I experienced had an exact timeline. Something like this was unlike anything I had ever experienced when it came to death. It happened so suddenly, a young girl’s life taken in an instant on a Sunday evening.
Again, life is short. She was 21, I’m 19, and I’ve never thought once about the possibility of dying anytime soon. Every time someone around me passes away, I always remind myself of the things that matter to me, to take advantage of every day like it’s an entirely new adventure. I remind myself to do everything I can with this life. We don’t often get opportunities like that to remind ourselves of the value of life, but I’m taking this one to do so.
If I’ve learned anything from these past few days, I’ve learned that life is too short and unpredictable not to live it exactly as you please.