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When I was little I grew up hearing different sayings about life that didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but as I grew older I began to realize what they meant. I heard a lot about, “What goes around comes back around.”, “To achieve you must believe.”, and “Karma’s going to come back and bite you in the butt.”, but as I grew up the one that stuck with me was, “You never realize how much you appreciate what you have until it’s gone.”. I never understood the full meaning because I’ve never lost someone or something that was really important to me before. I believe you never realize how much you appreciate something until it’s gone.
Seeing as I’ve never really lost someone who meant a lot to me, I didn’t know how to deal with the tragic news the night of January seventh. I came home from school, got into bed and took my daily nap. When I woke up, I was still in a sleepy haze, my eyes not fully open, my ears hearing only what they want to hear. I could hear my sister on the phone, in a panic, saying to someone, “It’s okay, calm down. Stop crying. Take deep breaths, I’m going to be there soon.”. Hearing this I had a natural instinct to yell out “What’s wrong?!” but I got no response. I repeated my question but still got no response. My sister left her room, and out the door she was. I decided I needed to get up, because it was getting late, and when I got out of bed I had texts, one saying “Omg, did you hear what happened?”, another saying, “I’m crying so much right now.”. At this moment, my heart was racing, my mind was thinking a million thoughts, my palms were sweaty. I received a text back saying “Zori’s dead.”. I looked at the text message in disbelief and replied, “What? Are you kidding me?”. I didn’t receive a text back fast enough so I got on Twitter to see if there was any news. As I walked down the stairs with my phone in my hand I read on the screen the last names of the victims in the car accident and saw the last name ‘Silvas’. My heart began to race and I felt a pit in my stomach as I reached the kitchen to proceed to ask my mother where my sister went. My mom looked at me with a solemn look in her eyes and said,
“She went to Ivy’s. She didn’t tell you what happened?”
“No, I was asleep.”
“Three Manvel students were in a really bad car accident and died.”
“Who was it? Have they released the names?”
“Yes. It was Zori Petrova, Josh Rodriguez, and Sara Silvas.”
When my mom said Sara’s name my heart stopped, my body began to tremble, the pit in my stomach grew deeper, my mind shut down, I felt sick to my stomach. I sat there crying in disbelief as my mom rubbed my back trying to comfort me saying continuously, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”. I didn’t want to be touched, I wanted to be left alone.
The next day I woke up at five in the morning to get ready for school, my movements zombie like. I threw on some clothes in the darkness of the cold January morning, not caring about my appearance. I didn’t want to go to school, I wanted to sit at home and cry. I got to school and prepared myself for the sympathy hugs and rubs on the back followed by “Are you okay?” or “I’m sorry for your loss.” or “Stay strong. It’s going to get better.”. I knew I needed to talk to my coaches because they were the comfort I needed. Before the bell rang to go to first period, I held in the tears not wanting anyone to see me cry. When the bell rang for us to go to first period, I saw one of my coaches in the hallway and immediately hugged her. As soon as I felt her arms wrap around me I couldn’t hold back anymore, my eyes filled with tears and I began to cry like I’ve never cried before. I couldn’t stop. “Is Dietrich in her room?” I asked with tears rolling down my once tan complected cheeks. “She should be.” responded my coach. As I walked to my coaches room the tears kept coming, my mind was on the crash pictures, my head was somewhere else. I finally reached my coach’s room and when I went in for a hug, the tears came harder, my breathing, quicker, my heart beating faster.
My third period teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, was Zori’s coach and she was affected deeply. When I got to third period, the first thing I received was a hug from her. It was a work day, so naturally to get my mind off things, I sat alone and quietly worked. My teacher walked over to me and said “If you need anything, I’m here.” I looked at her with tears streaming down my face and nodded. The whole day my eyes were red and puffed like clouds on a clear sunny summer’s day. I walked around school with a blank look on my face. All that was going through my mind were the moments I shared with Sara, the things I wish I told her, her smile, her laugh, the crash pictures.
That night I was restless. I fell asleep at three in the morning. When I finally fell asleep, I had a dream. I was in a classroom full of students watching a movie, it was lit by only the emergency lights in front of the room and the brightness of the promethean board. I was standing next to a desk and sitting on the desk was Sara, laughing, conversing, smiling. We were having a conversation and I told her everything I never got to tell her that I wished I had, the fact that she helped me become confident on the softball field, that she made me feel like I wasn’t an idiot when I made a mistake, that she taught me softball is about going out on the field and having fun, it’s not always about winning, and how I looked up to her and she was a role model to me. When I woke up from the dream I felt like crawling in a hole and crying because that’s when the reality of everything hit me, she was truly gone. There was no getting her back.
I believe that things happen for a reason and they teach you things in life. Never go a day without expressing to the ones you love how much you appreciate them, because we go about our days on this earth thinking what we have will last forever, but it could all be gone in the blink of an eye.
(RE)flective Spin 