The death of family and friends is something that everyone deals with at some point in their life, and something that everyone deals with in a different way. It can teach a person valuable lessons about life and relationships. It can also change the outlook we have on life, and the deaths of two students in my high school this past year did just that.
Towards the end of my junior year, I was sitting in my high school commons as I did every morning, when word started to spread that a senior in my school, named Jack, had collapsed at our local community center the night before. Jack was an acquaintance of mine that I had known better when I was younger, but we had not crossed paths in quite some time. At first, admittedly, I was not too concerned because kids did not seem to be making a big deal out of the situation. On top of that, Jack was a popular, happy, funny kid; bad things did not happen to kids like him.
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Some of Jack’s closest friends were not in class that day, and my teacher struggled to explain what had happened the night before. What happened was this: Jack had collapsed due to cardiac arrest while running around the track, something he had always enjoyed doing. The only other information we had was that he was in a coma at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and it did not look good.
Over the next few days, our school was united in praying for Jack. As we got more news from his family, chances of a happy ending grew slimmer and slimmer. Three days later, while I was in my english class, I got word that Jack had passed away. I will never forget the feeling in the hallway that day. Partly due to the fact that some classes were still in session, but mostly due to what had just happened, the hallways were still. All that was to be heard was occasional sobs; all that was to be seen were kids either crying or sitting still, staring in