stages aren’t necessarily the same 
for everyone.

I also learned that the anticipation 

of death doesn’t make it hurt any 
less. You can try to imagine what 

life will be like when someone is 
gone, in a morbid sort of attempt to 
prepare yourself. But when you get 
the call, when the finality sets in, it 
doesn’t matter how long you spent 
preparing, or how many times you 
said goodbye. It hits you hard and 
hurts all the same.

I spent too much time thinking 

about death that week, trying to 
figure it all out until I decided that 
you can’t “figure it all out.” 

I came home and enjoyed what was 

left of my summer. I said too many 
goodbyes and then moved to East 
Lansing and tried my hardest to feel 
OK about everything. I set a picture 
of Boomer on my desk and slipped 
one of Nana’s rings onto my finger, 
and moved forward.

I fell into a routine: wake up, 

exercise, class, homework, sleep. On 
the weekends I went out. Hangover. 
It got old fast. I tried to construct 
meaning out of things that I knew 
meant nothing to me. I made new 
friends and I missed my old friends. 
The ex-relationship ensued. The 
silence 
was 
both 
peaceful 
and 

deafening. I kept reminding myself 
that it would get better. Change is 
hard, but it just takes time, right? It 
felt like I was losing at some arbitrary 
game. Who was I losing to, though? 
Myself? I looked at old pictures too 
often. I was homesick.

I 
found 
joy 
in 
little 
things, 

though. Like the walk down the path 
behind my dorm to the Starbucks 
in 
Michigan 
State’s 
College 
of 

Business, and Friday morning runs 
around campus with a new friend. I 
learned about things that interested 
me and had long phone calls with my 

parents. I became more observant 
of everyone and everything around 
me. I learned that change and fresh 
independence inherently comes with 
loss, but that’s OK.

The last time I heard from my dad 

was Tuesday, Nov. 8. I texted him 
on Wednesday. No response. And 
again on Thursday. I said, “What’s 
going on with the stock market?” I 
was expecting some paragraph about 
the economy that I didn’t totally 
understand, ending in “everything 
will be OK.” He was always like that 
— making me feel safe. No response. 
I didn’t think much of it.

My mom told me on Friday. I had 

just gotten home from chemistry 
lecture and I was sitting in my bed 
drinking Teavana orange tea. My 
grandparents were already almost 
at my dorm to pick me up, she told 
me. And I remember asking my 
roommate if I needed to bring home 
black tights for the funeral.

I remember the first week he was 

gone through a blurry, tear-stained 
lens; I was drowning in a tsunami of 
grief. I wasn’t angry, just in shock. 
After the funeral, we flew back to 
New York and broke the earth next 
to Nana. I felt my heart shatter into 
a million pieces inside my chest and 
wondered if it would ever feel whole 
again.

It felt hard to breathe for a while 

after that. It still does sometimes. 
My dad has been dead for over a year 
now.

I found out later that my brother 

was supposed to stay at my dad’s 
house on Thursday night — the night 
before we found out. So he drove 
over there, but he forgot his key. He 
knocked and no one answered, so he 
left.

It’s funny how the world works 

like that. It’ll take away your dad, 
but protect you from what’s behind 

the locked door. Somehow it meant 
everything and nothing all at once; 
I had nothing left to learn, except 
everything.

When you lose someone too young, 

too suddenly, you also lose a future 
you were supposed to have. You’re 
left with all these things that were 
supposed to happen and now they 
won’t, they can’t. So without a 
choice, we adjust the plan, we accept 
the cards we’re dealt and we try our 
best.

We try to figure everything out. 

We grieve. We cry. We pick up the 
shattered pieces, slowly. And we 
try, desperately, to make sense of 
everything, even when it doesn’t 
make sense.

I really don’t know what I believe 

in anymore. I don’t know if there’s 
a God or afterlife or fairness. But I 
know it’s harder to believe in nothing 
at all.

Slowly, time will fill parts of 

what’s empty now. The thought 
of loving something so much and 
having it taken away from me again 
terrifies me. But the only thing that 
scares me more than the potential 
for loss is having nothing to lose.

Sometimes, I think about the 

person I was one year ago when 
my 
world 
was 
shaken 
and 
I 

questioned everything. Sometimes, 
I can’t believe that person was me. 
Sometimes, I wonder how I got here: 
I go to a different school, my hair is 

less curly and blonder, I still bite my 
nails and question everything, my 
ears are studded with faux diamonds, 
I don’t drink orange tea anymore. I 
know less about sports than I used to 
and more about health care in Haiti 
and still have no idea who I am.

But here’s what I’ve learned from 

this:

My dad, along with so many others, 

wasn’t 
particularly 
deserving 
of 

what he got. My dad died because 

his veins stopped pumping blood to 
his heart. It was a side effect of his 
anatomy. It was an unlucky, random 
stroke of fate.

We don’t really have control over 

a lot of things that happen in this 
life, but we do have control over how 
we choose to deal with them. After 
you get the call, after the earthquake 
cracks the ground beneath you, who 
will you be in the aftermath? That’s 
when we get to choose.

Maybe the memories will always 

invade my dreams and I’ll always 
see him in crowded rooms, having 
to remind myself it’s not him. Maybe 
I’ll always search for artifacts, for 
something tangible to hold onto, 
from the life my dad lived. I’ll wipe 
the dust off the photograph from the 
abandoned box in the basement and 
tell myself that he’s smiling like this 
somewhere.

It’s crazy to me how the days come 

and go quietly and then suddenly it’s 
a new year in a new city, strangers 
became friends and friends became 
strangers and right now I am here 
— made of all the people that have 
come and gone, all the places and 
moments that came before this.

I learned that sometimes happiness 

becomes a choice you need to make; 
you can find it in your friends and in 
your family and most importantly in 
yourself. I think I’ll always exist with 
regret and heartbreak and loss, but 
I’ll also live with health, happiness, 

love and the exciting uncertainty of 
the future.

So finally, I ask myself what I 

can do to repay the people who 
have touched me so deeply, the 
people that taught me so much, even 
though they weren’t here nearly long 
enough? What can I do with my tiny 
part of this massive whole that can 
somehow make up for them not being 
here?

Because I am here. I’m right here.

Wednesday, January 31, 2018// The Statement 
7B

I set a picture of Boomer 
on my desk and slipped one 

of Nana’s rings onto my 

finger, and moved forward.

When you lose someone too 

young, too suddenly, you 

also lose a future you were 

supposed to have.

