It’s been a week since I got the news. Nine o’clock, one week later, it is finally hitting me that I am waking up to go to a celebration of life, celebrating a truly wonderful soul who departed this earth way too soon. For a soul whose family not only has an overwhelming amount of love for each other, but also anyone who steps into their path, friends who quickly become like siblings, aunts and uncles to them. My heart has shattered due true to this tragedy.
Death itself is very hard to wrap your head around. It’s difficult to imagine someone you know simply disappearing from your everyday life forever. It is almost as if someone hit the delete button and there isn’t an undo. It leaves you with so many questions and aches, as your ears ring with all of those little things you wish you could have said to them just one more time. Death shows no mercy on the ones your now angels leave behind; it is a brutal and unexplainable feeling. A feeling I know all too well.
This is my fifth heartbreak due to death of a classmate or teacher from my high school. I have attended way too many wakes/funerals/celebrations with my girlfriends from freshmen through senior year. I am only nineteen. My community was dealt an unlucky deck of cards, and I have never thought something was more unfair. I am nineteen and I have seen every element that grief has to offer, yet I know that I am not the only nineteen year old unfortunately well versed in the process of grieving. But even in the face of incredible heartbreak and loss, I have seen such astounding strength not only in myself but within the people who have felt the hurt right there along with me.
It is true what they say: “we become who we are when we fall apart.” I have never seen people demonstrate such bravery, empathy, courage as when I see them look tragedy right in the eyes. There isn’t a day that I don’t think about those four classmates, and teacher I have lost. Each of them hold a very special place in my heart, and I do miss all of them terribly. But there also isn’t a day I don’t laugh, smile, sing at the top of my lungs or hug one of the people who are still here for those that aren’t. I now live for them. I take chances, sing a little too loud, smile a little too much and hug a little tighter.