Sometimes I look back at the people I know who have died too soon. I think about the kids in school, or who just graduated. I think about the gangs they were in or the bad home-lives they had, or maybe about how they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes people die too soon. Sometimes it is no one's fault.

This year alone, I have lost three friends from high school, all too young. I think about the lives they were supposed to live and the success they were supposed to achieve. I remember the good times and the bad times with these people. I try to remember the insignificant moments, that I only thought were insignificant; the time I passed them in the hallway or the football games we attended together. When I do this, I feel so sorry for the pain and suffering their close friends and family are enduring. The loss of someone who hasn't even begun to live yet.

I think about how these people will never get married, never have kids, never buy a home, or start a career. I think about how the lives of the people around them will have to continue. How soon, they will return to school and work and only have them in their memory, not by their side.

But I try to remind myself of the things they did do. The things in life they did get to experience. Someone will remember their first day of school, the day they got their drivers license, the day they won first place and I am reminded to not look at life as a glass half empty, but as a glass half full. Their life wasn't a waste, it was just cut too short. We need to remember these people by the things they did do, not what they would have done.

So take a look around you. Cry a little for the ones who were taken too soon. But smile, when you think of the memories you have of them. After all, we are what we have done in life, not what we will do.