Every time the seasons change and the air gets colder, I am reminded of the loss I experienced on April 10, 2024. Last spring, I wrote an article about my friend, Bela, who died in a car accident.Â
Since that article, my grief surrounding Bela has changed. Throughout high school, I spent a decent amount of time feeling pretty depressed. I thought I was never going to escape that building, which just seemed to go on forever. I believe that I am a happy person with sad moments, but those sad moments tend to be dark and deeply unsettling. I was caught in a dark moment for a long time in high school, but in April of senior year, I was so close to the end. There is something so hard about seeing the ending of a book, but knowing you still have 35 pages left to read. Especially when the book is so painfully boring that it’s depressing. But in those last 35 pages, you are so grateful you stayed until the end because you learned something. You learned that no matter how painful it was, you are a better person on the other end. You are compassionate and caring and have one goal: to never feel the way you did while reading that book again. That is what life felt like in the last three months of high school.Â
Bela died in that gray area. She died in that uncertainty and anticipation. She died without knowing how it feels to tuck the book away on a shelf and let it collect dust after two years of growing, changing, and becoming a better person. She died believing she had it all figured out when really, she was just coping with high school like the rest of us.Â
Last spring, I took an anthropology class called “Approaching Death.” On the first day of class, the professor asked us what we believed would be the best way to die. While I didn’t have an answer to her question, the only thing I could think to say was that I wanted to be there. I don’t want to not know when I’m dying. I want to be aware of it, I want to know it’s coming. I want to have a choice.Â
Just like in freshman year of high school, when the world got so black and white and blurry that I thought it was better off without me and all my colors, I want to know when I’m going to die. When I am old and gray with happy little wrinkles painted on my face, I want to sit in my house that I bought with my future wife, with my old scraggly little cat nearby, and know that I lived hard and that tonight I’m saying goodbye. I want to go to sleep that night, finally feeling settled, knowing that if I woke up tomorrow, I would be happy and satisfied, not disturbed and upset by my own presence the way I was back then. I want to know that I made it to my end, and that I got to live for a long time.Â
Bela is never going to get that. Bela died in the limbo of high school, the thick of it. Nobody deserves that. Nobody deserves to miss the opportunity of getting to the moment that they never thought they were going to make it to. Mine was stepping foot on UMass ground, with all my stuff in my shoebox of a dorm, and plans to meet up with my roommate for the very first time.Â
As soon as the air gets cold and the birds start to fly away to warmer weather and happier days, I think of Bela. I wonder what her moment was, if she even had one. I wonder if she knew she was going to die moments before it happened, or if she didn’t have a clue. Maybe she was smiling and laughing the whole time, blissfully unaware of the 18-wheeler that collided with her Jeep Cherokee.Â
When everything turns barren and the leaves are all gone, I’m reminded of how I used to feel during this time, and I am grateful for my current happiness. While I miss the vibrance of t-shirt weather and the feeling of that long, sweaty hug from the sun, I am grateful for the tools I now have to weather the winter alone. All I can do is hope that Bela felt the same when her eyes blinked for the last time and when her heart pumped its last drop of blood before stopping and leaving her body in stillness on the side of I-95.Â
Can’t get enough of HC UMass Amherst? Be sure to follow us on Instagram, listen to us on Spotify, like us on Facebook, and read our latest Tweets!