Broken Hearts

I had to write an essay for my Composition 1 class. The topic I picked was the worst day of my life.

Monday October 29, 2007 started out like any other Monday had.  It was dull, dreary, and just one of those days school was somewhere I did not want to be.  Nothing in particular felt off about that Monday until an announcement over the intercom came on.  This announcement had become familiar to me for I had heard it twice before.  Once a year for the past two years the principal of my high school came on the intercom to tell the teachers of each class to read the statement they had been given.  This was not a good announcement to be read for it meant that someone in the school had died.  On October 29, 2007 it was read off a sheet of paper that my two friends Liz Greenhalgh and Jay Naylor had died in a car accident the previous night.

            Jay’s name had been read first and I thought that it sounded familiar.  The instant Liz’s name was read off that paper, I crumbled on the spot.  While she was not one of my best friends, she was still close to me.  My friend Rhia was also in class with me and asked if I would go to the library with her where everyone affected by this shock was meeting.  When we got there I saw my friends Natai and Ann-Marie and we cried together.  I called my mother and was picked up from school.  Ann-Marie stayed in the Graphic Communications classroom for the rest of the day.

            A candlelight vigil was held on the upcoming Thursday.  My friend Keowa put together two videos of Liz and Jay.   Many people got up and talked about memories they had of Liz and Jay.  That Friday was Liz’s wake.  I did not start crying until I saw a picture of the two of us in our Geometry class.  I did not stop crying for the next hour.  Liz was unable to have an open casket due to the damage her body sustained.  The only thing her parents were able to recognize her by was the collar she wore with her name on it.  Her funeral was much easier to stand through.  I had cried all my tears the night before.  I do not remember crying for the next two months.  It was too difficult.  I never did attend Jay’s wake or funeral.  I did not know him quite as well as I knew Liz.  I wish I had gone just so I would have been able to say goodbye.

            Over the past two years that Liz has been gone I have begun to forget her voice, her laugh, sometimes even her smile.  Her eyes are something I will never forget. Liz, myself, and our friend Kate all have the same shade of blue for our eyes.  Sometimes we considered ourselves triplets.  Ann-Marie and Liz called one of the printing presses in our Graphics class their baby.  The past two years without Liz has been difficult to adjust to.  Sometimes I wonder if she was ever even here.  I see the pictures of her and the videos with me standing next to her but she is not here.

            Death is a difficult thing to go through.  After Liz and Jay died one of my main fears is that I will lose more friends to death.  I cherish every day I spend with my friends even if I only see them for a few minutes, if not less.  While the memory of Liz’s death is one of the worst I have I still move forward.  I know that she is watching over me and all of the friends she left behind.