Before my life came crashing down, I was carefree, taking everything as it came and often times, taking things for granted. Sometimes in life, you need a big jolt to pull you out of your selfish ways. Sometimes you're grateful for what has happened to you for making you who you are today, or you just wish your life would go back to it's joyful nature where there was no weight resting upon your shoulders.
It's been two years now since my best friend has died and the pain of that day still haunts me. Her name was Anna and she was one of the most bubbly, loveable and caring people I ever knew. She was previously my older brother's girlfriend who had moved in with our family due to harrowing family issues. From the first day we met we had hit it off, we had become friends beyond imagineably possible, even though she was seven years older than me. I told her my secrets, she told me hers...or so I thought.
Anna had been living with us for about a year and in that time, she had broken up with my brother, had a large amount of strain within her family and her life was falling apart, Little did I know, or even my parents, that everything about her was crumbling. We were just too naive. I remember noticing that she was coming home late every night even before she had school or work, and I was worried. Here, was a girl that I loved dearly and truly looked up to disappearing and reappearing at the late hours of the night.
Days before her death, I had stopped her on her way from the bathroom, looking her in the eyes, there were bags under her eyes like she hadn't had sleep, her long blonde hair was ratty and she always seemed like she was sick. "Where have you been going to lately?" I asked her sincerely.
"Nowhere, I get home from school late." It was such a cold lie, a lie that leaves you taken aback that they would ever do that.
"I don't believe you, what are you doing? Hanging out with Jenny? Doing drugs with her?" I would have never dared to ask her if she did drugs, I truly trusted her. But why was I asking her if she was hanging out with Jenny who was her druggee best friend?
"No, I'm not," she snarled, pushed past me and retreated to her room.
Days later, Anna and I spent hours talking, enjoying the weekend and listening to Sublime and all her other favorite bands. We had forgotten about our little disagreement and all was well. I had fallen asleep in her room after we had talked for hours and hours, it was a dreamless night and a surprisingly good sleep. I had awoken when she was leaving the room on her way to work, she peered at me, laughed at the expression I guess I had on my face and left the room.
That was the last time I saw her alive.
The day had passed like any other, just hanging around and doing nothing interesting, I had absolutely no feeling at all that something bad was going to happen that day. Which, at least one of the people in our family could tell when something huge is going to happen to them, none of us expected this,
Late that night, when everyone in the house was fast asleep. A loud knocking echoed throughout the household. It took a while for someone to actually react and go downstairs to answer the door. My mom groggily got up and trudged down the stairs, she got automatically suspicious when she saw red and blue lights outside our window. A policeman was standing at our door, a sullen look on his face. The first thing that ran through my mother's mind was "Oh no, what did Anna get in to?"
"Is this the household Anna Denali lived in?" He mumbled. My mother nodded and expected the worst...or almost the worst to come from him. "I'm truly sorry to tell you this, but she got in a car accident and passed at around midnight,"
Tears welled in my mother's eyes as the policeman handed her Anna's license, said sorry once again and left. Mom stumbled upstairs, blinded by her tears and knocked on all of our doors whimpering "Anna's dead. She died, she got in a car accident." We all walked from our rooms and came together, I didn't quite understand what had happened, my mind was still clouded with sleep.
"Wait, what did you say? Where's Anna?" I questioned. When I saw her dark expression in the faint light of the hallway I became quiet. She died? That's not possible, I saw her this morning, happy and lively. How could she be gone, just like that? My heart sunk when I realized I would never talk to her again, spend late nights chatting with her again, telling everything I have to say to her. Never again.
I fell to the ground and curled up, tears streaming down my face, my mother was doing the same at this point. My brothers stood there in solemn silence and look at the ground, so obviously pained. The rest of the night, nobody could sleep, we had regressed to our rooms and to our beds, but we just had too much on our minds to simply fall asleep. When morning came around, my pillow was soaked with tears and I felt I had no reason for even living.
I learned later that she had ran off the road and the presumed cause was that she was having blood sugar issues which she had gone to the ER almost a week before her accident for the exact thing. Her car had flipped and her neck had been broken, she had died on impact. The gruesome details bothered me too much to explain, I had never wanted to imagine my best friend being killed by a car accident.
We had gotten calls from her family that we had last seen at her high school graduation, not long before, who were just as heartbroken as us. Even though we weren't immediate family, she was my sister, my parent's daughter, she was a part of our family.
The funeral came and went, tears were shed, love was given, and a mess of flower arrangements were everywhere. At this point my family wanted it all over with and to go back to our everyday lives, which we knew would never happen in a situation like this, we only hoped. A stupid, immature hope.
A quote stuck to me that Anna had posted on to her Facebook "You can turn off the sun, but I'm still gonna shine," which I later learned was a quote from Jason Mraz's song "The Remedy." It all felt as if she knew something could happen and even if she's gone, she will always be remembered as the amazing and bubbly person she was.
This whole experience made me truly realize that life will never be what you expect, you have to truly be grateful for every single thing you have in your life and to enjoy it while you have it. Never say you hate your parents, they are there to help you and keep you safe, you can lose them at any point. If you have no legit reason to hate your life, don't say you do, every day that you wake up is a truly great day no matter how it plays out.
