If someone were to have told me six years ago that I would be attending the funeral of the boy sitting next to me in history class, I wouldn’t have believed them for a second. Yet, here I am.

This week, more than most, I have seen death significantly impact my university, my peers, and even myself. With the loss of a graduating senior, the passing of a high school friend, and the death of a couple halfway across the world, I have watched young people all around me struggle to accept mortality.

As we grow older, we become more accepting of death, but the thing about loss is that we are completely unequipped to handle it when we’re young. There is no handbook to mourning a death, especially when it is sudden. The passing of a grandparent is one thing; often expected. However, the loss of a young life is an entirely different story.

It is more difficult to process the death of a young adult because they have not yet lived their entire lives. The realization that someone has passed away before they even had the opportunity to graduate from college is heart wrenching. During spring break, a graduating senior at my university passed away. The death came as a complete shock to the entire campus. They say only the good die young, and that is exactly what I have experienced this week. Not a single person on our campus had a bad thing to say about this young woman. In fact, everyone seemed to agree that she had an incredibly kind heart and a friendly personality. The same has been said about a boy I went to middle and high school with.

When my mom called to tell me about the death of this former classmate, I was completely shocked. I could not comprehend how such an intelligent, creative, and kind person had passed away before he was even twenty years old. But that’s the thing about life. It’s all fun and games until we’re reminded that it can come to an abrupt end at any given moment.

Following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, our campus became aware of the fact that one Lexington native, and university alum, was missing in Belgium along with her husband. Several days later, it was confirmed that both were killed in the airport during the attack. It is so easy to distance ourselves from issues that are not directly affecting us. However, what I found most shocking about these attacks was that they managed to directly impact by campus community from thousands of miles away. The lesson I didn’t necessarily want but was taught to me this week is that death is the sole thing that binds all of us together. The one thing that we all have in common is that eventually our lives will end.

Although under terrible circumstances, I witnessed the deaths of these four people unite several others together. I saw people on my campus sharing stories about the graduating senior who passed away during spring break. I saw students, staff, and alumnae mourn the loss of Stephanie and Justin Shults together. I attended a funeral with several classmates whom I had not seen since graduation nearly two years ago.

Death is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult when it comes around. However, the unfortunate but also important truth about death is that it has a way of uniting people. It reminds us to live our lives to the fullest and appreciate every day that we have on this Earth. And while it hurts to see such wonderful people leave this world, at least we can rest a little bit easier knowing their final impact on the world was to bring people together and remind them what is truly important in life.

I’d like to believe that such wonderful people die young because they have already lived a more fulfilling life than the rest of us. Some people require an entire lifetime to make their impact on the world, but others are able to do it in just twenty years. I have no doubt that these young adults whose lives were taken far too soon lived rewarding lives. I only wish that they were here to see what a tremendous impact they have made on everyone they encountered during their lifetimes.