nina writes

When I was sixteen years old, my best friend was killed in an accident. Roger was an old soul, and I was just a kid who thought she knew it all. On the best days, I spent my time with Roger and a few of our friends going out on small adventures and hopping trains throughout Los Angeles. These adventures seemed really big to us kids at the time, and it felt like that was all we would ever do for the rest of our lives. When Roger passed during our junior year, nearly everyone in our high school was distraught. It marked a dark time for all of us, but for those of us closest to him, we were left with a pain that time can’t completely ease. I was a different person twelve years ago (as we all were when we were teenagers), but his accident made me grow up quickly. Roger’s passing defined me and steered my life for both the better and worse, in ways I’m still comprehending.

Before reality truly hit, I dwelled on the wrong things instead of considering the present or the future. I was a typical high school kid trying to get through adolescence as best as I could. I have always dealt with anxiety growing up, and being in high school just amplified it. I struggled through classes and making friends, but I tried to fit into the groove of things as much as I could. However, with Roger and our closest friends by my side, I felt invincible. We spent our time outside of school going on small adventures that made us feel grown up, even though we didn’t know much about what being grown up even meant. When we figured out how to take the train and commute around, we would end up on all ends of Los Angeles to find artistic and stylish stores. I was a selfish teen, assuming I didn’t have to do much in order for my future to turn out okay. I was more concerned with being liked by everyone than making sure I got good grades. The number of friends I had was always more important than it should have been, and I never focused on myself or who I wanted to be. I was concerned with what everyone else might have wanted me to be. In my head, I would be sixteen forever, which led me to believe I could never be hurt by the world.

The day Roger passed remains a vivid memory in my head, full of beeping monitors and the smell of a sterile white world. On Saturday night, he was hit by an oncoming car, and by Tuesday, his brain shut off. These four days were a prolonged experience: time slowed more and more with each day of only hearing bad news. I spent Tuesday morning at school, waiting in chemistry class for the lunch bell to ring, watching the clock freeze every minute. My aunt picked me up from school early and dropped me off at Huntington Memorial Hospital. Her voice was gentle as she asked if I needed her to stay, to which I should’ve said yes. A nurse escorted me through the halls, and my hands shook as I gripped my school bag around my shoulders thinking, “It isn’t real until I see him with my own eyes.” I could already taste the salty tears gathering on my face. The realization hit me as soon as I stepped off the elevator and saw his family gathered in the cold ICU hall, tears streaming down every face including mine now. The silence of the hall was deafening as Roger’s mother hugged me, speaking of how her angel was truly her guardian angel now. Roger’s mom and grandmother led me to the end of the hall which stretched out before me with every tap of the tile floor below my shoes. Nurses shuffled around in black scrub uniforms behind a long desk in front of Roger’s hospital bed, going about their day like this was not extraordinary. Anger crept up on me as I caught myself wanting to blame them for not being able to save my friend. I wanted to slam my fists down on their desk in frustration and demand an answer to why they weren’t spending every waking moment trying to fix Roger. A curtain, the color of his mother’s favorite lavender, was drawn around his bed, and suddenly, I didn’t want to be there in that bleak white room anymore. I could hear that steady, rhythmic beeping of the monitors like a metronome inching toward the end of a melody. I could feel the dread rushing to my fingertips like blood to the head as a nurse pulled the curtain back to reveal the punchline of the joke of a day. A dam broke behind my lids, and the tears I held back for days rushed out all at once. I struggled to take a seat next to his broken body, and I couldn’t register that it was actually him, dirty bandages and all. I wanted to speak to him, to say hello and goodbye. But I felt my throat swell, and my lips refused to move. I wanted to touch his hand to let him know of my presence, but my hands shook in place in my lap. The room buzzed and buzzed, and I could only sit in cowardly silence. My life suddenly split into two parts at the moment: before Roger and after.

Among the grief and bad habits that I picked up through the years that followed, there was always room for learning and growing. I should have been worrying about my next math test or where to apply to college like everyone else around me was, but instead I was trying to figure out how to make it to the next day. Suddenly, the earth’s rotation picked up speed and I floated above ground. For years after Roger’s passing, I dealt with depression, anxiety, and even drug abuse at my very worst. However, I met people along the way who taught me of the hope that I could always turn things around for myself. I stopped worrying about others and learned to focus on my own well-being; petty things like how I should dress or how many friends I have were no longer a priority. I was. Grieving taught me to be honest and authentic when I need help. On my worst days, I still revert back to my 16-year-old self, but now I at least know how to pull myself back up again.

Though twelve years have passed, I can still feel myself changing because of the impact Roger left. It is the one event that ties everything about who I was, am, and will become together. I used to be an innocent kid who thought I knew everything about the world, even though I couldn’t plan past tomorrow. The grief weighed so heavy on my back that I had no choice but to become powerful. The grief taught me everything I know about my own identity so far and of the potential I have to keep on creating it. My experience proved that the world keeps spinning through all pain, and thus, create endless chances to try to be better. Through trying times, we must keep moving forward with the pace of life. The loss of Roger doesn’t choke me up as often or as badly as it used to, but I can at least be open about my pain now. I have the freedom to choose where I go from here.

Photo by Roger