Memorial.

When I got to school today, the first thing I heard in the parking lot was a high-pitched wail. Emilee, a girl in my fourth hour, was sobbing in the arms of one of her friends. I went to first hour to find Mrs. Mann teary-eyed and shaking. At first, I didn't know the two were related. Jokingly, I said to Khala, "Is the world ending today?" But then, Mrs. Mann came into class and told us what happened: Cam Taylor died. Cam Taylor, the kid who dressed up as Mario last friday, was dead. Cam Taylor had a seizure in his sleep and he is dead.

I barely knew him. I saw him all the time, though, and I know that his death in itself won't truly have a long-term effect on my life. I can't miss him because he was never a part of me like he was to Chris or Emilee or all of the kids from St. Pats. But I started thinking about how I never saw that boy without a big group of friends or a smile on his face. That Mario outfit he wore was the last outfit he would ever wear to school. (He probably would've liked to go out that way, though, given the choice. Silly.) Just like me, just like all of us, he was dealing with his own problems with his friends and love life. He was stressing out about the future just like us. He had dreams. He would have been a successful, happy man. A father, maybe even a grandfather. Now, because of a birth complication and bad timing, he'll never be any of those things.


Eventually, sometimes soon and sometimes not, everyone I know is going to die. Dying isn't just for old people or sick people or other people. People my age, high school seniors at the crossroads of their lives, die, and it's not always expected. One day, you could be tired from morning cross country practice. You could decide to take a nap, and a nearly forgotten congenital heart defect could strike you dead by the afternoon. You could live with seizures all your life with a smile on your face, but one comes in your sleep, and suddenly, it's fatal. Yo could be driving down the road with your friends and collide with another car, killing you instantly. You could go in for surgery expecting no complications and never wake up from the operating table. You could be Cam. Tre. Kris. Matt. James.

I look at my mom and wonder when I'll be crying by her tombstone. Or will she be crying by mine? Khala wants to be a nurse. Raven wants to teach. Will they get to do it? Will I ever be a mother? I think of my dad. I think of my dad's cigarettes. Is that what'll take him? Or will it be something much more sudden, more unexpected? It's sickening. Life is sickening. Life is too precious to waste yet too fragile to live. How can something so beautiful be such a disturbing, heart-wrenching paradox?

Right now, everyone is crying. Kids from all grades and social groups are mourning over the loss of this person because it's fresh and bleeding and new. And they should. The world lost a wonderful human being, so full of potential and so very good. They look at his pictures and write on his facebook wall. They say what's on their mind, personal feelings about him that Cam may or may not have already known. They'll see his picture for years to come and think about all the times they had, the times they would've had, and the times they'll never have. Eventually, even if they don't stop hurting, they'll be wrapped up in life again. It'll sweep them up because no one person can stop the ever-present passage of time; it drags you along kicking and screaming if you refuse to go. Eventually, these people who knew him at his worst and his best and his last will tell their children about a boy I played soccer with in high school. He's frozen here at North, and there's nothing we can do about it. As we all grow and change, we'll always see his goofy eighteen-year-old grin because we'll never know what his nineteen-year-old grin looks like.

I'm not a woman of faith, but he was a man of it. And for him, I hope he found exactly what he expected. If he did, I hope that he sees how loved he was. Because Cam was loved, by so many and so much.