An Honest Question

Today was the last day of my sophomore year of college!

There have been some really hard parts about the last two years. However, school has been the easy part. Death, of course, performed his starring role four times over. I hate to think of these losses as things that have happened to ME, but I do. Those were my beloved friends and family and though I know many others lost them too and that they - Howard, Ivette, my brother Joshua, Roger - they lost the flesh and bones of their selves, yet all I can wrap my mind and my heart around is my own sense of grief at missing them. I lost them all and they weren't all I lost. I lost the others too. I lost my grandma Eloise. I lost Tyler. I lost others still. Yes, other people lost them too. But how could I know how they feel, how they've felt? How could I know anything other than what I feel and what I have felt my whole life since that first loss at four?

Losing them has made everything I've gained that much more meaningful. What would I stand for if I didn't stand for the memory of all of those I've lost? Who would I be? Who am I if not a person who has been hammered with the reality of death and is trying to swallow every droplet of life for the knowledge of its minute passing?