Before I start, I should say that this is not your typical article, clearly. This is a detailed account of what I went through the day my best friend died, and the weeks that followed. You don't often hear stories shared like this, so I hope that maybe my experience through the loss of my best friend helps to open the eyes of others. I hope if you are reading this, that by the end it will make you reflect upon your life and appreciate your friends a little more and hold your loved ones a little closer.

Picture this:

It's early April and you are in upstate New York, on vacation with your significant other. You have just woken up and you're excited about the days to come. Your boyfriend takes you by the hand and you follow him to the kitchen. You sit at the table and enjoy the peace and quiet while soaking in the warmth of the morning sun shining in through the large glass windows. It feels like you are in another world, miles away from anyone else and as if nothing could ruin this moment in time. Just as your boyfriend is about to get up to make breakfast and you are thinking about how you got so lucky, your phone buzzes. You get a text. Your friend is gone.

But wait, this is an April Fool's Day joke, a late and extremely morbid prank that she is trying to pull on you. She loved to mess around so this is just her trying to be funny, she's just screwing with us.

So you call her and she picks up the phone! The heaviest sigh of relief passes through your body. But wait, this is not her? Who is this? It's someone from last night who has her phone. Why do you have her phone? Why would you answer the phone of my dead best friend? Why would you pick up and let me have that false moment of hope and relief? "She's gone," this voice at the other end of the phone says. "I have to go, I'm too upset to talk about it." And that is all you get. This voice at the other end of the phone ruins your life in one moment and that is all you get from them.

You're left with questions. You're not sure who to call so you call your friends, your coworkers, your boss. But none of them know anything about it and you are left to break the hearts of people you care for and tell them that one of all of our favorite people in the entire world is gone.. And you don't even know what happened. No one knows what to say. You spend your whole day sobbing into the phone, on what was supposed to be an enjoyable vacation, hundreds of miles from the people that loved her and knew her, and all you want is to be there to figure this out, but you are stuck.

My life was changed in those seconds. You see, you are not supposed to lose your best friend at 19 years old. A beautiful girl, who offered nothing but greatness to this world is not supposed to be taken away at only 17 years old, before she even knows what this life has to offer her.

I often wonder if the girl that picked up the phone grieved the way some of my friends and I did? We all knew her differently and we all saw different sides of her.

But did this girl know that some days she hated herself so much she didn't think she could make another day, but that she never gave up?

But when she loved herself she did it with a passion and could take on the world?

Did she know that no matter what she was going through, she would tuck it all away to focus on everyone else's problems and everyone else's bad days?

That she would still light up the room with one smile the second she walked in?

That she would make you forget all of your problems the minute she started a conversation with you because she caused enough laughter to keep you going all day?

She didn't even have to try. She didn't have to try to be funny, or smart, or helpful. It was just who she was, she was naturally all of these things and she made you want to be a better person yourself.

If I could have her back I would never complain about how she sat too close to me to watch me do my makeup in the mornings, or how she would beg me to drive her to McDonald's at 2 a.m. for chicken nuggets. I would never nag her for leaving all of her empty energy drinks on my furniture or leaving her empty candy wrappers from 7-11 scattered all over my bedroom floor. I would never take her selflessness and sense of humor for granted.

I would tell her that she is beautiful every day, as she did for me. I would never try and stop her from eating a whole 20 piece nugget by herself, or complain about her wanting to go to "Friendly's" yet again, even ago we were there every other weekend already and I had enough.

I would let her take up my whole bed and I would not bump her off when she complained that my butt took up all of her side of the bed. I would embrace her obsession with cats, and her wardrobe of cat shirts.

The weeks that followed held unfathomable days. Her vigil, her wake, her funeral. I ran away at the sight of her casket because I could not think about my friend in a box in the next room. I don't remember much from her funeral, just that lots of people were hugging me and trying to get me to speak, but I didn't hear much of the condolences they were trying to give, but what was there to say? I remember tuning out the pastor while sitting in the pew in the church trying to make sense of what was going on and wishing that he actually knew her as he was speaking about her as a person. While trying not to think about the fact that my friend is only a few feet in front of me, and will soon be underground.

I would tell her I love her every day if she could come back, and I would've been there more. I should've been there more. We fought the night before she passed away, nothing major, but still there will never be a day when I don't think that things are left unsaid and think to myself that there was something I could've done, that I had one job and I failed her.

So please, if you have made it this far through my long winded story I have got to thank you, I hope it has opened your eyes a little more just how losing one person can change your life, and to just always appreciated the ones you have got left.