I remember one night about a year and a half ago. I was sixteen and spending the night at home with my parents, watching Desperate Housewives and playing backgammon with my dad. The phone rang, the caller id showing it to be my mom's friend Grace. My mom let the phone ring, commenting the Grace knew how much she like the show, and would understand if she just called her back later. However, when the message started to play, Grace's voice was so somber and wrenched that my mom ran to the other room, and answered the phone immediately. From the other room I strained to hear what was going on, and soon the silence was broken by the sound of crying. Immediately, I thought not of Grace's teenage son, with whom I had been friends for about nine years, but rather of his girlfriend, Katie.
I'm not sure why I immediately jumped to the conclusion that something had happened to Katie, but immediately I was frozen in place. Katie had been one of my closest friends for many years, we had even dated for about four months, until we had grown apart. Even so, we had remained steadfast friends, and the idea that something could have happened to her shocked me.
I sat there, in fear and shock at my own ideas, until my mom came into the room, looked at me with puffy tear-filled eyes, and hugged me. "Katie died in a car crash about an hour ago," she said. Even so simply stated, I couldn't begin to grasp the idea that she had simply vanished in that little time since two nights before, when we had sat on my bed and watched American Pie together, discussing her boyfriend, boys and girls in general, life, and the future.
Even now, I find myself sometimes ready to dial her number, share my big news with her, ask her opinion on a new hairstyle or on a short story I wrote. She would've turned 18 next week, and often I find the hardest part to be the fact that I have no choice to move on, to leave her in the past. However, the pain does lessen, though it does not go away, and I have found ways to channel my grief and to try to make a difference in her memory. I have seen good things come from the bad, and have tried to remember everything she taught me about Yin and Yang. The impossibility of returning to the past forces me to move forward each day, though not an hour goes by without a thought of her, a regret, a tear, a laugh, or a smile.
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My sister passed away about a week ago, she left behind children, grandchildren and one greatgrandchild. We can't believe it but I tell my siblings she just graduated from this life to another, she is not in pain and will not suffer. You see she was the 2nd of 16 of us. there were 10 of us living the last sibling passed 44 years ago. I'm the 12th child. Just remember she lives in your heart. It would help her family if you called to say Hi. I know when our parents died their family and friends forgot about us. I want people to know when a loved one dies they leave behind loved ones, who would be happy to see their loved ones friends stopping by to say hi. Do you need help?Hang in their my friend
Thank you for your words. I actually have remained very close with her parents, as well as her sister and several of her cousins, and as I get ready to start college in a week, they will be one of my hardest good-byes. Not only did we help each other through Katie's loss, but as tensions strained between my parents and I they stressed to me the importance of maintaining that relationship, and became like a second set of parents to me. It is amazing that even from death such beautiful things as these rare true relationships can come forth.
Its amazing how in our ignorance we know what is happening.
We live so well and die so young.
http://www.progressiveu.org/181139-christina-i-am-sorry
I think alot about my friend this time of year.
Go in peace
~Silence
all truths are easy to understand once discovered; the point is to discover them ~galileo