Why you should cherish every moment with those you love.
But in the end, one needs more courage to live than to kill themselves. -Albert Camus
It’s one of the worst things in the world to lose people you are very close to. At age 21 I’ve already lost more than 10 friends to different tragedies and accidents, not counting family. The insane amount of times they have happened has taught me the importance of appreciating the people you love and cherishing the time spent with them.
4 years ago there was a horrible car crash in my city involving multiple kids from my high school. Five of them died and one lived, I believe they crashed into a pillar and the entire car was engulfed in flames. I knew all of them and was friends with four of them at some time in my life. They were all lovely people and this accident was so tragic for the people of Burbank, my city. It was said they were all under the influence, drunk driving and smoking weed. Regardless, it was an awful thing to happen to such amazing individuals. Around 2 years later, an accident happens with five people involving a truck falling off the side of a dirt road and tumbling down a steep hill. The driver and two of the passengers were pronounced dead on site, and the other two were injured but expected to live. I knew every one of the people who passed, and they were great friends of mine during my high school and middle school years. I remember I was on my computer at home and my friend Rio walked in and told me that Jake, Ian, and April died last night in a car accident, I was absolutely shocked and at a complete loss for words. I hadn’t seen all the social media posts yet so this was my first time hearing about it. In a 4-year time frame, 8 people that graduated from my high school were now gone from this world. I really couldn’t believe it happened… I hoped this would be the last of the tragedies, I prayed, but I was wrong.
Around a year later, I don’t remember exactly how I found out about it. Another friend of mine was found dead at the Universal City subway station. It was said he jumped in front of the train when it was arriving and killed on impact. My friend David Ferrer was an unbelievably chill human whom I spent endless days with at high school. We would ask him how the weather was at nutrition and his answer was always “Dandy” we eventually made a joke out of it. The kid was insanely smart, gifted to say the least. After graduating high school I hadn’t seen him for quite a long time, he finally came over with another friend of mine and we just hung around for a bit. He honestly seemed fine, I didn’t really notice anything different with him. He was always a quiet reserved person and that was just his personality. I would’ve not known for a second he was even thinking the slightest about ending his life. This taught me that you can never know what someone is feeling by their demeanor, it’s easy to hide how you’re truly feeling. Shortly after, I witnessed seeing my grandma start developing Alzheimer’s. She was the only mother figure I ever had while growing up. A few months into that, she developed a cyst or something on her bottom and it got to the point where she needed help with just about everything. We eventually brought her to the hospital to treat her problems, and she ended up passing away about a month later. She was such an amazing person, treated me like a son and never got angry with me. At such a fast rate, people that were there almost my whole life were vanishing right in front of me.
Sadly enough, it doesn’t stop there…
On a normal day at my apartment, my friend Austin came over and told me about a news story of someone being launched onto the freeway sign from a car accident. I took it in and just didn’t really second guess it, pretty much forgot about it. Around 3 hours later, A friend of mine named Bobby posted a snap chat story with him crying saying “everything I do from now on is for Richard” I was extremely confused, I didn’t know why he would be saying that. We tried contacting Bobby to ask what was going on. While waiting for him, I remembered what Austin told me earlier that day about the person being launched onto the sign. I knew what I had to do was look at the news picture to see if the car was visible in the image. Unfortunately, I recognized the car immediately to be Richard’s Ford Fiesta RS I was in just a couple weeks before this day. My heart literally dropped, I just broke down in tears for hours on end. This was the worst one yet, I cared about this dude in so many ways. He was the kindest and most humble person I knew. I don’t think I could express in words how cool of a person he was, I never once saw him angry or in a bad mood. He was at my apartment only a week or two before the incident, I got to see his car and he had a 5 harness seat belt installed in it. It didn’t make sense to me why he was launched out of his car after hitting a truck while trying to pass a slow driver. From seeing him the week before, I knew putting on a 5 harness seat belt took quite some more time than a regular belt. I think he didn’t fasten his seat belt because he may have been late for work and was trying to rush there. I wish to God he did, this one really brought me down in ways unlike before. I just was so mad this could have happened to him, another great friend. On top of all this, there were a couple other stories of suicide and accident’s involving people I knew. I didn’t write about all of them to keep this entry from being too long.
After reading this, if you still don’t understand how crazy the world is, and how fast people you love could be gone, I don’t even know what to tell you. All this happening completely changed the way I treat people, it changed the way I acted too. It’s strange, I used to be able to watch any movie, and when the saddest scene came up, it didn’t affect me one bit. Now I can’t go through one emotional scene without my eyes watering or tearing up. I learned the major importance of appreciating the people you care about. Not just appreciating them, showing interest in their passion and interests as well. God forbid, someone you know could be going through something difficult mentally, it’s virtually impossible for you to know. From personal experience I know it’s one of the most difficult things to tell people that you’re depressed and feeling like ending it all, even your family and closest friends. When I was in a horrible state, I thought about ending my life multiple times. I would picture in my head committing suicide in different ways, I couldn’t stop it. I’m being serious, if it wasn’t for the people who I knew that valued my life and well-being, I may of not even been here still. After I would think about suicide, I immediately then pictured what my friend’s faces would look like after finding out I was gone, and it saved me. I knew I couldn’t do that to them, I didn’t value my own life but I had friends that did, and that was enough to keep me from making the horrible life ending move. I’ve learned how much a voice can help, for that reason, I value being there for everyone I love so damn much. I won’t just be there though, I’ll let them know they are an amazing addition to my life, and how blessed I am to be their friend. I regret not being able to talk to the people I’ve lost from suicide, especially David. I know that If I ever see anyone going down that path in any extent, it will be my mission to get them out of that horrible, depressed mental state. This is why you need to cherish every single moment with the people you love, you never know what could happen. Bask in it, embrace the things you have and the times you’ve shared with people. Appreciate them greatly and do anything in your power to help them succeed. There are so many people that lack friends and real human connection, hearts out to those people. It was very hard writing this, looking at the news stories and thinking of what these young adults had to experience. Everything I do now is for those I love and those who are not with us anymore, I carry a bit of all your personalities with me everywhere I go.
Burbank Angels, You are greatly missed.
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Thank you for reading.
