Those That Die Young

If you know someone who died young, a lot of people will tell you that 'it's God's plan' and 'the universe just picked a flower in full bloom'; nobody talks about the garden when it's lost it's flowers though.

I graduated in 2012 and there have been 15 deaths in the class I graduated with that I know of.

The first was a boy I grew up with, we'll call him Taylor. We weren't close in High School but we hung out and had the same classes and friends in Middle School. During Music Class one day, he made a joke during a presentation and made me laugh out loud. He was sweet, kind, funny, and wild. He fell into a bad crowd in High School but once we all graduated, he straightened out and was doing a lot better.

In 2014, on Christmas Day he was shot outside his house. He went back out to grab a secret gift for his girlfriend and there was a drive by shooting.

I saw it on the news that night and it took an hour for me to stop crying long enough to tell my family what happened.

They told me that he was in a better place. That it was simply his time.

I still don't think a drive by shooting counts as God intervening to pluck a flower at it's prime.

The next friend was a girl from my High School, we both got into every Honors Class together and we were friends. She was a Mormon and after we graduated she moved to South America to help build a village and teach at a school.

What none of us knew, was that she had a rare genetic disorder. I don't know what it was exactly, but she died in her sleep. She was 19. Her family said that they didn't know how much time she had when she was diagnosed at 15 but she always had her head high and always helping those around her.

The next 11 were during COVID, most of my class were persuaded by one counselors to become nurses and go into the medical field. I was friends with all of them on Facebook, and watched them post begging people to stay home and to get vaccinated and then nothing.

Nothing, until their family would write out a long post about the last time you can see them.

My last two friends that passed away were the last ones I saw before COVID hit. I'll call them Melanie and Alan.

They were the main couple in high school, she was athletic and smart and so funny; she never made fun of anyone and was the first one to jump into action during a crisis. We once had someone fire a gun on campus and she dove into the street to catch a toddler that ran from their mom and protected him until she found his mom again. Alan was such a goof ball, wasn't a great student but a friend to everyone he ever met. He was a stoner with a hackie sack and rode a skateboard to every class, and once he made me laugh so hard water came out my nose while drinking out of a fountain.

I met up with them a few years after graduation for lunch. We ran into each other at a gas station and met up a few more times to hang out. We once spent 4 hours at a sushi restaurant laughing and talking and tasting sake. They were basically vagabonds, traveling the world and becoming citizens of the world.

They were so full of life and love, they had so much to give and wanted nothing in return for themselves.

When I heard about their passing, it was from a friend of a friend of a friend. I figured they were lying, but after a little digging I learned they were in a car accident in the rain and both died on site.

I was devastated. Out of all the people that I graduated with, all the awful horrible people that didn't get better, Melanie and Alan were gone before them.

It's not fair.

Also, people kind of suck when you grieve for your own friends that pass away. I'm only 28, and Melanie and Alan died last year; I requested an afternoon off to go to their memorial and my boss denied it even though I requested it a month in advance and had already arranged to cover someone elses shift. My boss told me that a memorial wasn't important and it doesn't count if the person was under 30.

I was 19 when Taylor passed away and no one tried to console me. Everyone told me to just get over it since I wasn't 'that close with him'.

14 of my friends have passed away in 8 years and I could showcase that statistic from a plane's banner and I bet no one would care.

14 of my friends are dead, they're gone, 11 of them are dead because of COVID-19 because people don't take it seriously. But that's a whole other issue all together.

14 lives gone in 8 years, and that's only people that were my friends. I know of at least 2 other girls that overdosed and another guy that died in Iraq, and honestly I think there's more.

Most of my graduating class went into the medical field or some branch of the military, only a few of us went into other fields.

I would just like someone to care about the fact that my friends have passed, not tell me some crap about how God plucks a flower when it's in bloom or how angels look better younger or whatever.

When one of my grandmas friends pass away, I console her and help her process her grief and help her. When one of my friends pass away, she tells me to get over it and that I have a lifetime to get over it.

Apparently her friends that she hasn't seen or spoken to in 35 years are worth more than my friends who I text or snapchat periodically to check in with if we can't meet up for lunch and we respect each other's boundaries concerning COVID-19 since I've had 11 friends die from it because they were trying to do their jobs and help people who refused to wear a mask let alone get the vaccine, its the decent thing to do.

If you have a someone in your life who is younger who lost a friend or someone close to them, help them like you would help someone older who lost a friend. Don't be a dick about it.