Memory

Yesterday, I found out that someone I knew from high school— that is, UWC— died last week. She died in her sleep, of heart failure.

It always feels strange when someone you know dies— and it's even stranger when they're so young, and when the death was in no way anticipated.

My grandmother told me this summer that it's a terrible thing to be as old as she is, to be 84 and know that most of the people she loved— her husband, her best friends, her parents— are all dead. She said it almost as if she wished she weren't alive anymore. "It's awful, outliving your friends, your family, your generation," she said vehemently. "At some point, there's no one left."

It makes me so sad to think about her family, her good friends, the people who spent every day with her. Isn't that terrible— to assume that you have someone for years and years to come, and then suddenly lose them, suddenly lose those years, forever?

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: tell everyone you love that you love them. Tell them now. You never know when it might be your last chance.