The day I learned tomorrow is never promised

Grade 9 students in the Collective Voice program at Aden Bowman Collegiate share their lives and opinions through columns. Selected columns run Mondays in The Saskatoon Starphoenix.

Losing someone close to you is something everyone will inevitably face. That much I knew. What I didn’t know was that losing a friend at such a young age is something I would have to go through.

On the weekend of June 10, 2017, I had a dance competition in Calgary. I thought it would be a normal dance competition, but in reality it was far from that.

That morning when I woke up, I put my wig on, got dressed and headed to the competition. When I was finished with my dances I was getting pretty hungry, so I went to find lunch.

While I was making my way outside I noticed a group of people from my dance school all huddled up. When I walked closer I saw that one of them was crying. At the time I thought it was because she was injured and was unable to dance. As I got closer I realized she wasn’t the only one crying. The whole group was visibly upset.

I approached the group to see what was wrong, and that’s when I received the news. My friend Lauren was killed in a car accident the night before while driving to Calgary as well.

In that moment, I didn’t know what to think. So many things were going through my mind and I didn’t really know how to react. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. It was very hard to gather my feelings and thoughts at the time; everything was just so chaotic.

My dance school continued to dance the rest of the weekend, but you could tell our hearts weren’t in it. After the competition had finished, we headed home. The drive was silent and emotional.

The pain of having just lost a friend made it very hard to go to school. That day was a blur. I didn’t want to be alone, but at the same time I didn’t want to be around a big group of people.

When I went back to school it was hard for me to focus on anything but what had just happened. In the aftermath of Lauren’s death, I had a hard time trying to comprehend it all.

I got more comfortable talking about it, which made things easier for me. By talking about it I was able to express my feelings instead of keeping them inside. Having my feelings out in the open also made it easier for others to approach me about the subject I was dealing with.

It has been more than a year since her death, and throughout this time I have learned that anything could happen on any given day. It continues to be an ongoing process to deal with the loss, and things will still upset me from time to time.

June 10 was a day I thought would be fun. It was a day when I couldn’t imagine any of this happening. It was a day that taught me tomorrow is never promised.