"Goodbyes hurt when the story is not finished and the book has been closed." ~ JND

I strongly believe that everyone has a point in their life where they realize just how fortunate they are. If you take a step back and look at everything you have you may realize that you have a lot. This realization may have happened a while ago, it might happen tomorrow, or it might just not happen until you're fifty-five years old. Every single day we have is a gift in itself and it is so incredibly easy to forget this as we follow our daily routines trying to fit everything we possibly can into our busy schedules.

Coming to this realization, however, makes you reflect on those who don't get to do the same. Any loss of life is difficult but it is the loss of young life that makes us realize just how amazing every day is. When someone lives a long life we are able to look back and say a lot of "remember when's" but when a young life is lost we tend to say a lot of "what ifs". What if they got to go to their first homecoming dance? What if they went to college? What if I said hi to them more? What if they never left?

There's a lot of questions we have in our lives that will never really be answered but it's probably the "what ifs" that will always bother us the most.

The loss of a young life is something that is hard to describe. It's like when someone hands you a book. It has a cover and a title and the first couple pages are filled with words but then it's just blank. You know there are words that are supposed to be in those blank pages, that's why those pages are there, but there aren't any words. You don't know how the book ends. You don't really know why the book ends; it just does.

Regardless of how short their story is each person's story is special in its own way. Just because a story is short doesn't mean it's not good. Just because a life is short doesn't mean it's not good. I think the best cure to the "what ifs" is remembering their story and the life that we are so honored to have shared with them, even just for a little while, because it is so beautifully unique and meaningful in its own way. Whether they are your favorite person in the world or the funny kid that sits behind you in biology they have a story. A good one. You should feel honored to be a part of it, no matter how small it may seem.

Always remember that you are writing your story, every day you are adding words to your pages. Make your story the best that it can be. Do it for those who have shorter stories than most. You may not have everything you want in the world but you always have something. You wake up every morning. You have a heart that beats. You are alive.

I know how difficult it is to lose sight of these things because I am guilty of this, too. It's so easy to get wrapped up in our lives but every now and then taking a step back from everything is what we truly need. It helps us see why everything we have is so important. It helps us write our stories, keeping in mind those who didn't get to finish their stories the way we had hoped.