My friends, I wanted to give you all something to start 2017 out on a good, happy note.
I wanted to.
But I'm going to hold off on that for another week, because there's something I need to reflect on. Perhaps it's selfish of me to do this, but maybe you'll find something of yourself in this story, too. Maybe it will resonate with you. Or maybe you'll see someone else in these words. One way or another, I hope they touch you, because this has changed me.
2016 will probably be remembered as a year of death for many of us. We lost many well-known figures that the world had come to love: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Prince, Gene Wilder, Carrie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds were the ones that really made me feel like the world had lost something, but there were so, so many others who passed on this year. But beyond them, I lost people important to me, and for the fourth time in my 22 years of life, I found myself thinking, "I'm too young for this."
Which is selfish of me, because I'm still here. They aren't. Their families are grieving more than I am. They are the ones who are really too young for this: all I'm doing is complaining.
So please, let me share them with you. I will hold them in my memories always, but that is finite: let me help them live on infinitely in the only way I know how.
Marie-Kristin Friedow
She didn't actually pass away this year, but she was the first friend I ever lost. And it sucked. Honestly, sometimes I still reel from it, even if she had much closer friends who were far more affected by it than I was.
I can't help but think about it sometimes: she was 18 when she died. In a car accident. She never got to graduate from high school, which was why I thought of her at my own high school graduation. Sometimes I look at my life or at what I'm doing, and I think, "What would Marie think about this?" I thought she was so awesome. Heck, I was 16 when I met her, and she was a senior in high school: it seemed like she had everything figured out. The day she told me I had "the best taste in shirts" was just about the best day of my life.
I'll never forget when we were practicing for our Writing Center publicity skit and she jumped up on a table and screamed to get my genuine reaction to it (it was part of our plan, but I didn't expect her to do it in the middle of class). We also got the "genuine reaction" of the rest of the room... and the room down the hall... and we laughed about it for the rest of the day. Or at least I did.
She wrote this as her quote on her Facebook not too long before she died. It's now saved on mine because I felt it needed to be. I sobbed when I read it again, but it reminds me to find the zest for life that Marie always seemed to have:
"I walked out of a building today, felt the cold air and this light drizzle of rain hitting my face, and just groaned with pleasure. I love being alive. ♥"
James Mumaw
James with his wife and his two beautiful girls. I don't think his youngest is especially happy about having to sit still to get her picture taken.Actually, when I met him, he was "Jamie." And his hair was a bit lighter. And I was friends with his sister first, but we all used to play together in the sandbox in my backyard.
I knew him for, quite literally, longer than I can remember.
He actually passed away at the end of 2015, but his birthday is January 10, so I felt he deserved a place on this list, since not only did I reflect on my memories of him on January 10, 2016, but by the time this article gets published, January 10, 2017 will be less than two weeks away.
I saw "Toy Story 3" with him and our friend Gary. Something about seeing it with them seemed... right. Since like Andy, we were all getting ready to go off to college, and since I'd known James since we were so young.
So young, in fact, that he didn't remember me when we met up again years later, not too long before he and his wife got married. But I didn't blame him for not remembering me.
What's important now is that I remember him, and the weird long ponytail he had when I re-met him (it was weird to me, because I remembered him with short hair... but he was also probably not much older than six in most of my memories of him, so), and the orange bucket hat he always wore. If I ever needed to locate him, all I needed to do was find that hat.
I miss James. I know I'm definitely not the only one. I wish I could have been there to hug his sister and hold her hand, to comfort his family. Even if James didn't pass on in 2016, I still felt it in 2016, and I know I will keep feeling it for a long time.
Kyle Collins
We were also in a Dungeons and Dragons club together in middle school. Laugh if you want, but I had a lot of fun there! If Kyle was our DM--the person who had written our game--he made it a little crazy, and if he was just playing with the rest of us, he always knew how to spice it up.
Case in point: I'm pretty sure I remember something about it raining cows.
I got to see him on occasion in high school. He had lost a lot of weight and was actually looking pretty good. I remember his laugh. I will always remember his laugh. We helped each other laugh about a lot, because we were both going through some hard times in middle and high school.
I was shocked when I heard he passed away, back in January. I wanted to give him one more big hug, like we always used to. He was such a wonderful friend, and it broke my heart that he wasn't here anymore.
That was the first real hard loss for me this year, and I'm sad to say it wasn't the last.
Chris Bir
Proof that I did in fact know him! Chris is in the front--in the black beanie, lounging in the grass--and I'm in the waaaaay back, sort of angled toward the camera, with my ponytail over my shoulder.
Anyone in choir will tell you that we were like a family: we had our drama, absolutely, but we all loved each other. I look at some of those faces and I have kind of negative feelings associated with them, but not Chris. He was always so full of life.
His death was what prompted me to write this article. Marie was two years older than I was. James was older than I was, too. Kyle was my age. Chris was younger than I am by about a year, but here he was, a freshman, and he made it into the most advanced choir in the school. Which he totally earned. I'm 22, and he was younger than I am. And he's gone.
Actually, I'm older than almost any of them--except for James--will ever be now. That's scary, and that's sad. But it makes me want to try harder in everything I do, because I know I'm going to experience things they never will. And even though Chris was more of a friend-of-a-friend, and so was James (well, he was more of a brother-of-a-friend, but still), I know that Chris was someone's best friend, James was a brother and a husband, and I need to cherish the time I have with those I love.
The mass media will remember the celebrities who died, but I wanted to leave a little piece of the people who meant something to me--and who still mean something to me--here for the internet to remember, too. I wish I could do more. But for now, I will do what I can to help them live on: by putting their names down somewhere they will, hopefully, stick around for a long time. It's only a gesture, and they all deserve so much more, but it's a small tribute to people who have touched my life.
For privacy reasons, I did not disclose the cause of death in these instances, but relevant links (in no particular order) are listed below, if you have any interest in learning more, think someone else might need the information, or would like to make a donation.
- American Cancer Society
- American Lung Association
- Find Substance Abuse or Mental Health Treatment
- Tips for Coping with Grief and Loss
