I cried at a funeral for the first time three weeks after I graduated from high school. I had been to my fair share in the past, but not to the point of emotional release. I just thought I was lucky. The following July, 13 months later, I found myself mourning in front of three closed caskets, all within a couple of days, and I cried at each one.
I wasn’t naïve… or maybe I was. What I didn’t know was the frequency at which death can attack. I had four friends lose its battle, and all could have been avoided. Three of those deaths were friends that I had gone to school with since kindergarten. These were people I walked the same halls with for over a dozen years. I knew them better than most.
Or at least I thought I did. Alcohol was a factor in each of the four deaths, a mistake I assumed others would make, not them. I was blindsided. Even worse, once intoxicated, they attempted to drive.
I shut down. I let their actions lead my judgments on those I had left. A process I look back at and just shake my head, it was the 18 years of safety coming back to bite me in the ass.
It’s now been two years since I’ve cried at a funeral, but that doesn’t mean death’s attack has ceased. I no longer consider myself lucky, because I know that means it’s affecting someone else’s life. And for that, I am scared.
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