The person I grew up with and had all my formative experiences with. Sure, we grew apart and became very different people but I’ll never forget what she meant to me growing up. Even when we would reunite and just have that same instantaneous goofy chemistry we’d have when we were kids. We could clown around for hours. She was only 38. Her death was sudden, a freak accident of sorts. Nobody who knew her was prepared for it.

This is the first death in my adulthood of someone who was this close to me. I’m still going through such surreal disbelief, anger and sadness. The permanency of death. Knowing I won’t ever see her again, talk to her again, get a text message from her again. That chemistry of being silly with her on birthdays and holidays, gone forever. The good advice she’d give me, gone forever. We won’t grow old together. We won’t look back together. I’m struggling most with the feeling of being stranded and forced to miss her for the rest of my life.