Bianca

This afternoon, I plopped down at my desk and mindlessly booted up my laptop. I automatically logged onto facebook (as every student avoiding their homework has trained their fingers to do). I was thinking about what color I should paint my nails and what ding bats people turn into when they see bikers. Five minutes prior, I had almost smashed into some scrawny geek with a giant back pack with my bike. They saw that I was pointed in their general direction and decided to stand there like a doe in head lights with their mouth half open. Idiot. As I was thinking up a more effective sneer or snide comment to direct at the next dork in my way, the last word of someone’s status caught my eye... R.I.P. 

I was smacked in the face with news that one of my first genuine friends I had made in high school had been in a roll over accident and had been declared dead at the scene. As I sat there frozen, the memory of her glorious laugh rung out and ricocheted against the sides of my skull. Memories of sitting in the student activities room telling each other of our latest boy drama or laughing with our chemistry teacher during lunch tutoring started played like a silent film inside my imagination. She was beautiful and silly. She always gave the best advice. She had a huge smile and glittering eyes. She was always willing to volunteer for the community service projects no one else was enthusiastic about. She was always there to listen or chat or share a meal. And she was gone. 

Of all people why her? We did not talk everyday. I wasn’t her best friend. I hadn’t talked to her for the better part of a year. Yet, I found myself listening to “If I Die Young” and sobbing. It’s startled me to think that she was giggling with friends and uploading pictures of her spring break road trip one day and the subject of a candle light visual the next. If it could happen to her, it could happen to any of us. 

In her memory-- give lots of hugs and don’t pass up the opportunity to look someone in the eye and tell them you love them because you think it makes you sound awkward. Laugh instead of roll your eyes. Hold the door for a stranger instead of tucking your head down and walking away. Don’t clutter precious moments with being angry. Forgive. Hold someones hand and tell them why you think they are beautiful. 

Life is so fragile. It is far too short to be rude to a kid with a back pack blocking a bike path.