I can't keep myself from thinking that this was supposed to end a different way, that this is how it was supposed to happen: You were supposed to drop me off at college. You'd help me move in, we'd go eat some lunch and then we'd all cry a little when you left. I'd call home when I was homesick (daily for the first few weeks), and you'd come to visit every once in a while. As much as I wanted these things to come true, these things aren't reality.

Here's the truth: The same week that my dad helped me move in we found out that he was having heart problems. What we thought was a cold or the flu never got better, and that combined with the fact that my dad kept gaining weight when he was barely able to eat led us to believe that something else was going on. To be honest I thought that at worst case he had pneumonia, not a heart condition, but as the weeks progressed with him in the hospital the doctors only had more bad news to offer. Until one day someone decided to stop with the bad news bullets they were firing and instead dropped the bad news bomb: we found out that my (at the time) forty-nine year old dad has heart failure caused by something unknown (most likely a virus that attacked his heart) and that he was in need of a transplant.

Now, if you think college is hard, stop for a second and think about how much harder it would be without your parents as a support system. My loving daddy, who had carried me on his shoulders countless times, who picked me up and swung me around, who was my rock and my wisdom at the lowest points in my life was now at a low point in his life. There were (and still are) days when I couldn't convince myself to get out of bed, days when I was terrified to think about the future, or to try to picture one without my best friend (besides my dog). And the worst thing about it all is that I had to pretend to be okay, for myself, my family and everyone around me.

If there's anything for you to take from this, it's these two things:

1. Don't take things for granted.

Remember that as you're excited to grow up, everyone around you is growing up too. Your friends are getting older and so are your parents. And no matter whether you're 22 or 82, there's no way to know when your last day is. Whatever the situation or relationship, love with all you have and treat people the best you can, including yourself, because we only get a certain number of days on this earth, and life is so much better without "what ifs" and "I wish I had done...".

2. You never know what someone is going through.

Whether it's a complete stranger or your best friend, you don't always know the extent of what someone is experiencing or how they are feeling. I can't even begin to tell you how much it meant for someone to just smile or say "hey" to me on the days when I was upset or hurting, even if I didn't even know them. Always be kind to people, because you never know when you might change their day or even their life.

Just as a P.S., please become a donor or at the minimum consider it. Out of the thousands of people in need of a heart transplant, only 64 surgeries were performed in 2016 due to the lack of donors. You don't need your heart or kidneys or whatever other organs with you when you die you can't use them 6 feet under. It's not a difficult thing to become a donor, and it doesn't negatively impact you in any way, but you could be giving someone the opportunity to walk their little girl down the aisle one day or to see his/her grandchildren.