Dealing With Death

This past Sunday night, a very close friend of mine passed away. She has a virus that attacked her heart, causing too much damage for it to repair itself and making her too weak for a transplant. She was 10 days away from the beginning her senior year. All of us began to question why exactly someone so young and talented would be taken from us at such a young age. A nurse told my mom how before things took a turn for the worse that she talked about how excited she was for her senior year.
As my friends and I sat with one another after we found out, comforting each other, we decided that there has to be something that comes from this situation, some sort of silver lining. Although we can’t see this silver lining now, we will be able to see it eventually. Dealing with death can be a very difficult thing, but it is possible to deal with the death of someone, I have discovered, with help from others around you.
The hardest part for many of us to deal with was that we didnt get to say good-bye to our close friend, but when we thought about it we realized we were happy that it was a quick death for her and not as painful as something else could have been. I would much rather have her die quickly without much pain than have her die slowly even if we did get to say good-bye to her. We will get final closure when we attend her funerals.
Although this next year will be difficult without her, I know she will still be here guiding all of us that she held dear. Dealing with death at my age, especially the death of someone else my age, is very difficult but I know that it is possible to cope. All I need is a support group (which happens to be my close friends!) and eventually I will be able to accept the fact she is gone.
A friend said to me “I’m sure she is looking down at us and telling us to cheer the heck up”. I agree. She was always such a positive person, making everyone smile no matter what.