She was the kind of girl nobody had a problem with, always smiling at anyone who looked at her, always said hi to...well, to everyone I can recall. And I only got to put the name to a (smiling) face in September of '03. Three months. That's not a long time to know an angel, but I'm glad I knew her even for that long.
You always hear people say, upon a passing, "she was such a sweet/nice girl." It sounds so cliche until you know the person, and when everything in that sentence rings loud and clear about her, it makes it so much more unbelievable...unreal in the certainly real sense. And no matter how you looked at this girl, her personality, her grades, her whole life, you knew she was one of the people you wanted to meet, no matter how briefly. She truly touched us all, those who knew her through childhood, those who knew her through high school, those who only stopped her in the hall to ask for directions their freshman year. She was friendly without being pretentious, funny without being insulting, and the only person who I never found a fault in. And now they're saying "God has a master plan" and "it happened for a reason" and I don't, can't believe them. God took a precious rare angel from this world, and left the devils to reign again. And I think of all the people who I wouldn't necessarily wish death upon, but whose lives are worthless, near-ending and they won't help themselves, my own life right now, and I just don't get it how SHE had to leave, how there was nobody else He could take. Things like this shouldn't happen at all, especially not to people our age, especially not to the good people of my generation, what few there be. Not them, never them, and you think nothing can happen to you as a teen, and you think those news headlines won't come to town, and then they do and nobody saw it coming and even if we had, what is there to prepare you for this?
And then you think, about your own family, how if you died right now you'd have regrets and things unsaid that you wanted to expose, and some people go out and do what they have to to lift that weight off their chests; others keep pretending their lives will never end, that they can go ONE MORE DAY without making amends and fixing whatever they have to in their lives. But when it's your own school, your own class, your own friend who had everyone fighting for her and crossing their fingers for luck...then it affects you. You really think about your future, or lack thereof. There's nothing like it, thankfully, it's a horrible realization, a more awful event to experience, but it kicks you in the ass and gets you to stop being a bitch about things.
Like I said, I only knew this person, this exemplary human being, for three months. But I am glad, thankful more than words but no less emotional, that I knew her. That I knew an angel.