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Today, my parents told me that a childhood friend of mine had been hit by a train and died.
She was a senior in high school, just starting the college application process with high hopes and dreams. It is true that we had drifted apart in later years and couldn't really consider ourselves "close friends" anymore, but I still never forgot how many hours we spent playing together as children; how many laughs we shared. She was a gymnast and later a dancer who went around to all sorts of competitions, and recently, I heard, she had been made an assistant dance instructor in the prestigious dance troupe she had been part of for many years.
My parents and her parents have known each other for a long time, longer than my friendship with her. She was an only child. I cannot imagine what her parents are going through right now.
Still, even as I'm crying, I can't really believe it. How could she have died? Why didn't she see or hear the train before she was hit? How could this have happened? Why? Why wasn't she more careful?
How could she have died before her life had even begun?
Teenagers, young adults (myself included) often can't feel death. It seems such a distant concept; you know people die, but you don't feel like it will happen to you or anyone you know. You know, theoretically, it could happen, but it doesn't feel like it would. This is the first time a death has touched me so near my heart; even the deaths of my grandfather and a good neighborhood friend didn't move me this much.
I suppose it was because, in both cases, my grandfather and that neighborhood friend had been ill for a long time, and so though we all wished fervently for the better, we knew the end was coming. But with this friend, my childhood friend, it was so sudden, so out of the blue. No one could ever have thought that this would happen.
It is a reminder for me that I have to be careful, for life can end any time, anywhere, without warning. That I must never live life in vain, and remind myself of my purpose and all the goals I want to accomplish, of everything I love and treasure. Each day is something to be cherished. For life is too short and too precious, both for ourselves and those who love us.
I have to remind myself. My friend was never given a chance to live. I have to remind myself of the chance that I have, and all the things that I can do. Of all the good things that are yet to come, and the opportunities I cannot waste.
Rest in peace, Jessica.
Posted by phoenix on 2009-11-07
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