You will never get that phone call out of your head. The phone call where you hear your friend sobbing into the phone, telling you that one of your friends is dead. For me it was a voicemail. I was standing at my place of work, just getting off my shift when I was heard my friends crackling voice over the phone, telling me that his best friend, and my good friend, had died.

It hit me like a whirlwind. At the age of 17, I had never had a person in my life whom I was so close with die. I have never had a person in my life die who was once the person who would wipe my tears or cheer me up in times of need. I have never had one of my heroes gone so quickly, and never to have them return.

The Reality Once You Hear The News.

The day anyone hears news like that is the hardest thing you can imagine. The reality of it is, it hurts like hell, almost instantaneously. Not only for you, but for when you think about the person you lost. In my case, it was knowing that this beautiful and magnificent person had their life cut so short at such a young age. It was knowing that he'd never be able to fulfill his life's greatest dreams, or get married or have kids. It was knowing that he was one day living his life, and that the next day he just wasn't.

The Reality You Face Over The Next Few Days.

There is then another reality. That is that you will spend the the next few days bawling your eyes out. You will feel empty inside. You will hate the world and not understand why this happened. You will then listen to the person's favorite songs and replay them over and over again, as images of them race through your mind. You will spend your time reflecting back on every memory you have with the person. You will look at all the pictures you ever took with them or even pictures of just them, being happy, living their life. You will torture yourself doing this but you don't care because you need to feel this pain, because it isn't fair, what happened just isn't fair.

The Reality After You've Had Time to Grieve.

There is then one final reality, and that involves you coming to an understanding within yourself. You will come to see that the friend whom you loved so much wouldn't want you to feel this way. You will see that your friendship was never based off sadness, but rather happiness. You will realize that this person would want the best for you. And you will realize that moving on doesn't have to mean forgetting.

The Reality That is True.

The reality of losing a friend or a best friend is one of the hardest things in life to deal with. And death is never easy no matter who you lose. However, the reality also is that we have to honor those we lost, we have to live a life in which would make them proud, and never stop doing so.

Honestly, I will never forget the heart break I felt when I listened to that voicemail. But I will also never forget the joy I feel when I think about my friend's beautiful smile as I imagine him looking down on me today.

For each and every one of us, our loss is truly heaven's gain. For everyone who has lost a friend or a loved one, know that they are always with you and that they would want the best for you in this world. You would never give up on them, so don't give up in yourself.

God bless every angel in the sky, and god bless my Paul. Every moment spent with you was a beautiful one.