I sent you a text last Saturday, February 20. It read, “I see you’re on your way.”  I sent it having no idea that it would never reach you, and never suspecting that we had already had our last conversation. It was intended as an innocuous way to get your attention. Knowing what I do now, those six words are almost eerie in their simplicity: “I see you’re on your way.” To where? I don’t know, and probably never will.

I didn’t know you for long, and as much as I would like more time, asking for it now seems as selfish as it is futile. If you had time to give, I wouldn’t dare ask you to spend it on me when there are so many more deserving. From the moment I met you, it was clear that you were someone toward whom people naturally gravitated. A pretty girl with bright eyes and a big smile that came almost as easily as the ones you inspired in others. I remember seeing you sing at “Twist” just before I left Cleveland, and hearing you belt those high notes so hard I thought you were going to blow the damn speaker out. But as I covered my ears, I had to smile, because you couldn’t care less. You weren’t singing for them. You were singing for you.

You were a natural inspiration for the creative at heart, wanting nothing more than to share the gifts you were given, and encourage others to do the same. You loved without prejudice, and you sang at the top of your lungs. You were a bright spot in this world, with a personality immune to corruption. And you still are, perhaps now more than ever. You’ve gone somewhere that your memory can’t be touched. You’ve become an ideal: an inextinguishable light inside every single heart that let you in.

People always have trouble understanding why the good are taken from the world while scum are left standing. I, on the other hand, have always found this dilemma quite simple. Souls like yours are taken from us because this world doesn’t deserve them. We are too weak, and too indifferent to our neighbors to understand someone with so much love to give. We constantly try to stay afloat amongst our own anxieties and selfish ambitions, not realizing how much harder it would be without you.

Now, I am left even more pathetic, forced to keep treading with the added weight of your absence. All I can do now is hope, fear, and lament. Hope, that your passing was easy. Fear, that it wasn’t. And lament, that I never asked you to stay.