When I started my junior year of high school, I expected to be presented with a lot of new challenges and opportunities; like where I want to go to college, or what I want to do after high school, and with the rest of my life. I was finally starting to feel comfortable with the person I was becoming and make some sense of life; then I was stopped dead in my tracks, by death. One of my closest friends of 5 years decided he didn’t want to be in this world anymore.

I remember it like it was yesterday; it was a Saturday, and from the moment I woke up I knew something wasn’t right. But I would have never imagined what was in store. I got a call from another close friend around 10am, there was hesitation in his voice, and he said “I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but I think you should know, Connor Thomsen took his life last night”. My first words were “no, stop joking that’s not funny”. I couldn’t believe it, I still can’t believe it.

I was so dumbfounded, I didn’t know what to do with myself, how was I supposed to feel? Was it my fault? What could I have done? Knowing I was with him the night before only made it weigh heavier on my conscience. How could I have let someone I care about so much do this, how could he do this to us? I had many questions but no answers. I couldn’t comprehend how one second he was here, and now I’m just supposed to be okay with never seeing him again, or not even getting to say goodbye.

Trying to tell myself it wasn’t happening only numbed the pain; I was over taken with denial. All I wanted were answers. I wanted to know why, not why he did it, but why he didn’t come to me, to anybody. Before this, I had never known anyone close to me to die, and out of the blue my best friend dies. Time went by, days, weeks, then months, and I still didn’t have the answers I wanted, but I had something just as good, something hopeful, I have beliefs.

I’ve spent endless nights in bed, toying with the idea of what happens when we die, where we go, who greets us on the other side…is there another side? After much internal conflict, realizing how I feel about God and heaven, I came to the conclusion that life is more than we see it to be. I believe we were all put here for a reason, and my friend Connor was put here to open up the eyes of all of us.

How easy is it to go through your day, concerned with what you need to do and where you need to be, but how often do we go out of our way to see how others are doing? Unimportant things to us, like giving compliments or gifts can mean the world to somebody else. There are kids like Connor everywhere, every day, fighting to stay alive. It is our duty, not as humans, but friends to make sure the people we care about are content, this I believe. Going out of your way for a few seconds a day can save you a lifetime of pain from losing someone close to you.