A couple days a go I found out that a friend of mine, who had been fighting cancer for quite a while, had passed away at only seventeen. Another friend that will never know life without homework, or get to see something so spectacular that it changes everything. Another friend who will never get married, who will never grow old. I have lost five friends now, some I was closer to than others, but the pain still explodes in my chest at the thought of them. Three to depression. One to a rainy night and bad tires. Now, one to cancer.
The thing that is messing me up the most is that the last thing I said to her was “stay strong”. Are you kidding me? I’m a writer. I had every capability to type out something extraordinary, but instead, I chose to be generic. I chose to tell her something that hundreds of people had already told her. Granted, we hadn’t talked in a while, but this was the girl I used to face-time everyday for an entire summer. This was the sweetheart that just wanted to love and be loved. Just like that, she is gone. Knowing that I will never be able to randomly message her and talk about god only knows what is killing me. She was a beautiful soul, and I hate the world for taking another one of the few flowers left amongst all of this ash.
I’ve been trying to ignore it. Telling everyone that I’m tired because I’m still getting over being sick when really, I’ve spent the last couple nights staring around the room, crying, and trying to find that one memory that defines she and I’s relationship. I’m struggling, and I think that is why I don’t want to talk about it. The first thing people ask me when I lose someone is if we were close. They want to know about the person. Well, she and I weren’t the type of friends that didn’t talk about the personal things. There was this state of awareness that we had both been through a lot, but talking about it wasn’t our thing. Instead, we talked about gummy bears, boys, and music. We sought distractions in one another, and I think that might be why I’m trying to distract myself from the fact that she is dead.
Either way, I hope she knows that I am grieving, and that I’m screaming on the inside, because people like her don’t deserve to suffer like that. I wish I had said more to her, but once again, life, and the end of it, has left me speechless.