Nobody tells you
that one day you will put your childhood down
and never realize it was the last time.
The last sleepover.
The last summer camp.
The last prank call from the edge of a bed,
trying not to laugh before someone answered.
The last time two little girls believed
they would always have tomorrow.
Christina,
before life became bills and responsibilities,
before grief had a name,
before we learned how quickly this world can change,
there was us.
Two girls growing up together.
Goodrich.
After-school camp.
Summer days that felt like forever.
Your house became my house.
My house became yours.
Your family became my family.
And somewhere between childhood laughter
and growing up,
you became my sister.
Not by blood.
By memories.
By years.
By love.
You were fire.
Loud laughter.
Big personality.
Quick temper.
A heart too big for your own good.
The wild one.
The kind of person who made people feel alive
just by being around them.
The kind of person people assumed
would always be here.
Maybe that’s why this hurts so much.
Because death is easier to understand
when it visits from a distance.
But you?
You lived in my childhood.
You lived in my favorite memories.
You lived in stories I still tell.
How am I supposed to explain
that a piece of my past is gone?
How am I supposed to explain
that someone who helped shape my life
is suddenly a memory?
I went to your father’s funeral years ago.
I remember standing there,
grieving a man who was part of our story.
Never once imagining
that one day people would gather
to grieve you.
That your daughter would have to grow up
carrying stories instead of your hand.
That your fiancé would have to learn
how to survive a future
that no longer looks the way he planned.
That all of us would be left here
trying to make sense of a world
that kept moving after you stopped.
And maybe that’s the cruelest part.
The sun still rises.
People still go to work.
Traffic still moves.
The world keeps turning.
While the people who loved you
stand still for a moment,
wondering how.
Wondering why.
Wondering what we’re supposed to do
with all this love
that no longer has a place to go.
So tonight,
I won’t remember the accident.
I won’t remember the headlines
or the tragedy.
I will remember two little girls.
I will remember sleepovers.
I will remember your laugh.
I will remember sitting on a bed
in a pink house,
calling strangers,
hanging up,
and laughing like we had forever.
Because maybe that’s what grief really is.
Love with nowhere to go.
And maybe that’s what friendship really is.
Meeting someone in childhood,
carrying them in your heart through adulthood,
and loving them enough
that even death cannot make them disappear.
Rest easy, Christina.
The little girl I met all those years ago
will live inside my memories
for the rest of my life.
Ashley Monae 