Four years ago, I lost a classmate and a friend. At the time, I felt as though my own grief was only relative to that of his closer friends and family. I never posted on his Facebook wall nor wrote about him on any other form of social media. There were others who were closer to him, and therefore more affected by his passing. Only they had the right to feel.
Did I grieve? Of course I did. I remember sitting in the school assembly and crying on my best friend's shoulder as we repeatedly told each other it wasn't real. I remember saying my goodbyes at his funeral. I remember the school remaining silent for weeks, even between classes, as students and teachers walked around in a daze. I remember alternating between feeling everything and nothing at all.
One year later, I was a senior in high school. He would have been a junior. There was a whole class of students who had not known him or his story. There were 200 students who had not sat through that assembly one year prior. The upper classes dressed in head-to-toe blue in his memory on the anniversary of his passing. Of course, the freshmen inquired about our dress, but the loss still felt too recent and tiring to explain to those who had not been there on that day, those who had not felt the emptiness of the entire community in mourning.
One more year went by, and I was a college freshman. As I sat in my dorm room that day, I saw my old classmates posting on Facebook, remembering him despite the distance and change they had inevitably undergone since graduation. I saw his own peers planning the dress-up event. It would be the last at my high school in his memory. I attended my own classes wearing blue tones. I may have been far away physically, but, emotionally, I was with them.
One more year passed, and I was a sophomore. Once more, I dressed in blue on that day. My friends from home and I all reconnected on that day, making it a point to remember. We refused to forget, despite the distance and time.
This year, I am a college junior. Everyone who had had the opportunity to know him personally has long since graduated high school. There are no more school-wide dress up days in his memory. But I still remember. I still wear blue. I know that we all do.
At my high school graduation, the song "Movin' On" by Raymond Hannisian is always sung. Its last line is "I just keep moving, 'cause it helps to ease the pain." And move we do. We grow, we change. And our grief similarly grows and changes with us. But we never forget.
