This past week, a girl that I graduated with's sister passed away at the age of seventeen! She passed away this past Saturday, from a brain aneurysm after feeling a headache last Monday. She was only seventeen years old! I can't imagine what school was like today for the people that sat next to her in homeroom and in the other nine periods of classes. I can only imagine someone saying to her last Friday see you Monday, and her saying ok, and now that person will never see her again. That is unfathomable to me, and I am not going to pretend that I would be strong. I would definitely cry and be confused and angry, mostly angry at God, for taking an innocent girl during her senior year of a Catholic High School, and around the holiday season of all times!
The closest thing that I can think of to this situation that happened to me during my time in high school, was during my freshman year. I was on the Varsity Bowling team, and the two junior captains that we had were excellent, we won some games, and lost some too, but we always had fun and class in doing so. We finished the first half of the season barely above .500, and it was the week of trimesters and Christmas. Right before I took my first trimesters of my Kellenberg career, I was called into my coaches office and saw my whole team there puzzled, as no teachers were supposed to meet students during homeroom during trimesters, as the administration wanted the students to study. I only saw one Captain, Mike, and I sat down. My coach came in crying hysterically and said that our other Captain, Tom, was involved in a horrific accident. He was walking to his bus, and a car blew the stop sign on the bus at around fifty miles an hour. It hit him dead on in the side and broke five ribs, punctured both his right and left lungs, blew apart his pelvis, crushed his two legs, destroyed his lower internal organs, gave him a concussion, and caused dramatic external and internal bleeding. They thought when the ambulance got there, he was going to die in the street, in front of his house, family, and friends from school, five days before Christmas. Long story short they saved him, was able to walk again, was our Captain the next year, and lead us to a Championship.
I know what you must be thinking. Dylan, that story is great and all, but he lives at the end of that story, the other girl didn't. You're right, but the main point is to point out just how precious your life is. You never know when you're at the end of the line. It can be a scary thing to think about, but it is something that is always prevalent, and always true.
During my last two years at Kellenberg, I was a retreat moderator for the freshman and sophomores, during my junior and senior years respectively. I heard many stories over my two years about deaths, illness, and injuries, but nothing ever happened to someone in the school like this when I was there. Sure every story that was told to me and our small groups was sad, but none had a school-wide impact like this. But we learned something during our retreat before our senior year began. We learned that God can sometimes give us a mess of things, but in that mess, we get a message. Now what message could come out of a seventeen year old dying in the prime of her life. Well maybe now people are more conscious of brain aneurisms, and learn about the symptoms. Maybe her passing, can spread knowledge, that can save another life. We were also taught that only God can draw straight with crooked lines, that he doesn't make mistakes. and that he doesn't give us what we want, but rather what we need, were also three other themes of that same retreat. He did this for a reason. A lot of people always assume that that reason is a bad thing, but again it could be through this horrific tragedy that someone is saved.
It is such a delicate topic to discuss, but again it is a sad reality that comes with life. It will be hard to go on but we need to move forward from this, thinking of her and her family during this time, and forever sending our thoughts and prayers to them. They need to keep moving forward, with her in their memories, and live life for her now, as she would surely want them to do.
Have any of you ever dealt with something along these circumstances? How did you deal with it, or are you still dealing with it? Was it easy, or was it hard?
Peace and Love,
DGS
Quotes of the Day: "Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water" - Christopher Morley
"It's always too early to quit" - Norman Vincent Peale