People tend to say, “You don’t know what you have until it's gone.” It’s a cliché statement, but like many clichés, its true. In the past year alone I have lost two people I loved greatly; my very first friend in high school and my grandfather. One I had mourned more than the other. The passing of my friend Shifa Mirza had affected me much harder than my grandfather, George Anthony. But nonetheless, the value I had for these people was the highest one can have for a person.

My friend Shifa was a 19-year-old nursing major at the University of Texas Dallas when she had a fatal car crash in October 2014. She was incredibly intelligent, kind, beautiful and charming. She was also too young to die, a tragic and unfortunate truth that had to be faced. I held her friendship in high value. Her passing hit me incredibly hard because she had barely started her life, and it was cut short so soon.

My grandfather just recently passed at the age of 71 due to lung and kidney failure from constant smoking and drinking in his younger days. My grandfather had his vices in his youth with my father, but as he aged, he realized his wrongdoings and he looked to God and religion. When I was born he had found a way to make things up to my father by treating me better than he did my dad. I was his favorite grandson and eventually my dad forgave him for all his past transgressions. When my grandfather passed in the early morning on June 4, 2015, I was incredibly sad, but I understood that he lived a full and long life, full of love and happiness.

It’s a strange truth that people value the things (or people) they lost more than when they had it. When we do lose things we love, it is a reminder that life is very unpredictable, and that valuing the things and people you currently have is incredibly important. Friends, family, kind strangers, and occasionally materialistic objects don’t last forever, but that doesn’t mean your appreciation for them ever has to stop.