To the friend that’s no longer here:

Years have passed by. Your smile vivid and bright in my mind. You felt like the world would be better off without you. Like you would somehow go away and exist as a ghost of the past. We can’t reach you anymore. That doesn’t mean we don’t talk to you. Feel you all around us. Envision the moments, relive the laughs, and hold onto the love of the past.

My love for you will never be a thing of the past.

To anyone that feels like the world is a better place without you, that you don’t matter, it’s simply not true. Someone does care. Someone will feel your absence for the rest of their life.

The seconds it takes to leave this earth amount to years of your loved ones wondering if they could have made a difference, pondering all the things they would do to bring you back.

Dalia taught me to make sure the people that truly matter to me know that they matter.

After living through the loss of my best friend, I wanted to do more for people. I wanted to help others see the good in situations and allow them to see the good in their own life.

I joined the Kagle Leadership Initiatives program not only to improve my leadership skills but also to make high school students realize that someone cares. To make sure they know that they have a support system, someone rooting for their success and someone that looks forward to spending time with them.

Life is a blessing. Your friends and family that are alive and breathing are a blessing. Don’t take a single breath for granted. Take the moment to tell the ones you love how much they mean to you.

You could wake up tomorrow morning without the opportunity to tell them that you love them. To tell them that they made a huge impact on your life. I truly didn’t realize how much I had left to say to Dalia until I couldn’t say it any more.

I can talk to the sky for the rest of my life but it’s not the same.

Below is a poem I wrote about Dalia:

Gone too soon like a beautiful sunset lowering below the horizon,

Never to return the exact same as it was before.

A beautiful glimpse of a site never to be gazed upon again

Unique, perfect in its own way,

And gone forever.

Appreciate your loved ones while you still can.