The past couple of weeks have not been the best of 2008 for me. The weekend before last my keys got stolen, as did my husband’s car. I had to spend almost my entire paycheck to get the locks and ignition switch replaced in my car just so we could drive it safely since someone out there had keys to it. We also had to have our apartment re-keyed to make sure that whoever took the keys didn’t come back to try to take more than that one night. That was stressful enough. Then this past weekend we discovered a bank error with our account that charged us some unavailable funds fees that ended up leaving us with absolutely no money in the bank at all. I still have yet to get the bank to refund the fees to me since it was an error on their part that caused the issue. Then the bomb dropped on me this morning.
I woke up like I do every other day and got myself and my son ready for work and school. I woke up my husband and continued to scuttle through the house getting last minute things done before we had to leave. I grabbed my cell phone to turn it off before I left for work and I noticed that I had a voicemail on it. It was from my best friend. Knowing that this woman never calls me unless it’s either very important or bad news, I wasn’t sure I wanted to listen to the message. I did and it was bad news.
A very dear friend of ours from high school had passed away yesterday. She had been diagnosed with Lupus when she was 16 and has been struggling with it off and on for years now. The past couple of years have been exceeding rough on her with multiple trips and long stints in the hospital. Her doctors did what they could to give her the best care, but this disease never has a happy ending. Last year things took a turn for the worse when she lost her mom. She was the type that never let things get her down and she managed to get herself and her little sister through that ordeal. However her health was still poor and her body grew more and more weary as time went on.
Sunday January 13th was the day that her body finally decided that it had had enough and she left this world as we know it. I listened to the sobbing message of my best friend and my heart broke. I knew she was devastated because the three of us girls had been really close all through high school and stayed in touch even after that sharing all of our experiences with one another. I couldn’t help but feeling numb and angry because it simply wasn’t fair that this had happened.
Why should such a terrible thing happen to such a beautiful, wonderful person? Shayla was the most loving, caring person that I’d ever met. She was truly an angel and I’m sure that I’m not the only one who felt that way. I would spend the weekend at her house and we’d talk about what we wanted out of life when we got older. She wanted to be a teacher, to get married, have children and live a wonderfully normal life. However her fate was less than perfect and she wasn’t able to have the dream life that she envisioned for herself all those years ago.
Rapists, murders, pedophiles and horrible people live in this world day after day committing heinous crimes that are enough to get them a one way ticket to hell. Yet this beautiful girl who never hurt anyone and had so much potential was taken out of this world way before her time because of some devastating disease? How fair is that? I know that she is in a better place and she isn’t feeling pain anymore and honestly that’s the only thing that got me through work today without bawling my eyes out every five minutes. I just think if there is some higher being out there that is responsible for the lives of those of us here on Earth, that being has a very screwed up sense of who should live and who should die. Shayla should have lived, because every life she touched was made better simply because we knew her. Always devout in her faith, she never once felt sorry for herself or questioned why this had happened to her. She accepted it and lived her life to the fullest that she could given her circumstances.
I won’t be able to travel to California for her funeral. (I live in Tennessee). I think that my best friend will more than likely attend and I’m sure she will keep me up to date on how things turn out. I can’t help but feel like a huge part of me is gone now. More and more people that were important to me in my past are gone and it’s as if my past is being erased slowly. I lost my mom in 2006 to cancer, and now I’ve lost a dear friend in 2008 to lupus. This isn’t counting all the other friends and family that I’ve lost prior to this. It takes me a long time to recover from the loss of someone in my life, I always feel guilty for my life going on when theirs can no longer do the same. I know that I will never forget Shayla and the good times we had together and how beautiful of a person she was. She made me a better person with her words of wisdom and her friendship and I hope that one day someone will feel the same about me! Missed but never forgotten. Peace be with you little sister, peace be with you!
