Jaime Navarro

Jaime Navarro: Friend, Son, Angel.

There was a boy with rainbows in his eyes. He never chose a favorite color, and he never had a favorite song. He loved all of it equally.

One day this boy was sitting in class. He was happy. He was laughing and having fun. He had his whole life in front of him. He was kind, he was respectful, and he had love. He had a lot of love.

This boy woke up one day pain in his lungs. His body was in pain. He was hot and cold at the same time. He was sick.

It was just a little cold. It wasn't anything too bad. It was a small thing.

Then the pain and cold lasted for a week.

Then by the end of that week he was locked in a hospital. He had a cannula, a gown, and a bed that would be his final bed. A stiff hospital bed that held so many others with this disease. He lay there talking about friends and family.

We were asked to make cards for him at school. I made him a card. I sent it to him. I told him to get better. I begged him to get better. I warped the paper with my tears. I tried to hold them in.

Jaime never read that card, and he never got better. I cook at home with my head down low, lost in my thoughts. My father comes and pulls me close. Immediately I know something is wrong...

My father told me my friend was dead.

Jaime Navarro died with the flu.

Death is a great and terrible thing. It has beauty that few will understand. Without death there cannot be life. Yet without life there wouldn't be death.

Why must we always be caught in our cycle of pain? We lie here to stare at the stars, huge balls of flammable gas. We ask them for things that are hard to obtain. We beg for things that we want. Wishes are prayers for the impossible to become real.

Yet some of those stars, the celestial beings that shine on us with light of the heavens... Most of them are dead.

Yet even in death the light of a star can still be seen. The light will have a long way to go before vanishing.

We all walked around the hall, we all saw his locker. Flowers of every color, his picture, smiling, surrounded by this rainbow of hope. His goofy grin as he waves to the camera at his volleyball game.

The hallways echo with the laughter, haunting, from the times of his jokes and dancing. The floor has the footprints of a ghost, as he follows you to class, his usual smile on his face. The mirrors will reflect his face. He will be sitting just behind you, smiling, telling you to hurry up for T.E.A.M. time. You will turn around, you will search for his face, and you will find an empty bathroom with the grime of tears shed for his lost body.

The dead will always be apart of our stories. It is not the dead that haunt us, however. It is the memory of the lost that will send chills down your spine and fire in your eyes as tears threaten your dignity.

I dress in my dress uniform. I put on my tie. I smooth back my hair. I do not let anyone see the pain dance behind my eyes. I walk with grace, I keep the face of stone. I see the tears roll down the cheeks of the ones closest.

We enter the church. I see a box, an american flag draped over it. Tears spring up into my eyes as I realize what the box holds. I realize who the box holds.

I enter the church, the stained glass showing angels reaching their hand to bring me to their celestial kingdom. I reject their hands. I reject their wings of snow. I will not believe in a dream to take me away from my reality.

I take my seat in the pew. I wait for the prophet to take his rightful place at the altar. I hear what the prophet is saying, but it doesn't register, not because he speaks beautiful spanish, but because I am staring at the red, white, and blue that surrounds my friend's coffin. Near the end of the ceremony, I feel my cheeks. They are wet. I look around the church. It is a very big church, the size of a junior high gym.

We all file out into the storm that awaits us. The sky weeps for the boy of rainbow. His friends surround the hearse. We all weep as we watch him get dragged away. We all see as he is dragged away by the grey hearce. Grey... Grey is the color in between white, the color that selfishly absorbs the rainbows radiant colors, and black, the color that gives the rainbow back in full. In one big blinding color. It was at that moment I felt more like the grey than ever. In that moment I wished to selfishly take the rainbow and make it mine, never to leave me again. Yet I also wanted to give it back to everyone. I wanted everyone to stop their tears and sobs. I wished things could be different. I wish things could be grey.

We went to his viewing next. We looked inside his box. He lay there like some type of jewelry, an accessory for life. He was such a sweet boy, and now he was gone. I hoped that things could change. I hated everything in that moment.

As I walk to his box, the first thing I see is his unsmiling face. His fingertips look like they've been stained with ink, and that is when I know he really is gone.

His fingertips are blue. His lips are blue. He is wearing a blue suit. He is gone for sure.

In traditional grieving, black is the color of grief, yet in that moment, I knew that blue was the true color of the dead.

Tell someone that you love them. Be the reason someone smiles. And always tell the people you love that you love them. You never ever know when that person will leave you forever. The last thing you say to someone may be the last thing you ever tell them again.