I Didn’t Know Grief Until My Best Friend Died
Author’s note: In no way am I exploiting or using this experience for personal/monetary gain. Writing is what I know best, and I feel that writing this whole thing down will help me in my healing process. I do not intend to make a profit from this piece. In the event any earnings are made from clicks, I will be donating them in honor of my best friend.
I can tell you so many things about my best friend Cassie. She loved dogs and otters. She loved Billy Joel, especially Vienna and River of Dreams. She loved photography. She owned more than 400 scarves. Her favorite dessert was fruit. She grew up on the Cape and could always find a connection with anyone she encountered who lived there. She wanted to be a lawyer and work in mitigation. She was fiercely loyal to her friends and affectionately referred to as ‘Mom’. She was an unbelievably amazing person.
Cassie died unexpectedly on January 15, 2021 at the age of 24.
It was not what I thought I was getting a call for on a Saturday morning. We had sent each other Snapchats not too long ago. We talked on the phone a few weeks prior, because she liked to call on the drive home from work so she could talk to someone. We said “I love you!” at the end of the call like always. I had no idea those would be our last spoken words to each other, but I do take a bit of comfort in that.
Before Cassie’s death, I had never experienced true grief. I lost three grandfathers within the span of five years, but I wasn’t close with one of them and I was just too young to really feel affected. One of my grandmothers passed when I was 18, and while I spent a lot of time with her, it wasn’t an unexpected loss because she was 97 years old. So grief wasn’t something I really knew about and felt.
Now that I have grief, I don’t know how to feel. The first few days were spent crying. I was the first of Cassie’s college friends to be notified, so I had the job of telling our other friends. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life so far. When her obituary was published and her passing officially made public, I didn’t know how to react. Eventually I felt okay to be doing normal things. But then other things would set me off. When I had my 25th birthday, I remembered I wouldn’t get a text from her and she would never get that chance to turn 25 either. When her Facebook was deactivated, I knew I couldn’t see those memories anymore. When her public memorial was announced, I knew this was something that shouldn’t be happening. And just the other day when I met up with some friends for lunch, I thought she should be here right now.
Mostly, I just feel numb. Physically, I’m here, but I don’t feel here mentally. I go to work and I study for my grad classes and spend time with my family. But I’m just not okay. I don’t know how to deal with grief. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Should I be continuing with my life like my friend isn’t gone? Do I just carry on? Am I supposed to wallow in my feelings forever because she’ll never get to experience what I’m doing?
I never thought I would miss someone as much as I miss Cassie. We were only friends for five years, but these were some of the biggest moments in our lives. We met sophomore year, after she transferred to our school and we were in Law 101 together. We became friendly with one another, and when I was experiencing roommate issues, I was desperate to move somewhere else on campus. I jokingly asked if she knew of anyone looking for roommates and she said, actually we are! I moved in shortly after to the Ordway House quad with Cassie and two other girls, who also quickly became my best friends. We called ourselves the (S)Quad, and it was the best thing I did in college.
We bonded over our love for talking, our similar music tastes, and our perfectionism. During our two and a half years together at college, Cassie and I were sometimes attached at the hip. She became an RA our junior year, and for our senior year I moved into the house she lived in. We left our doors unlocked so we could come in whenever (always knocking first, duh). When she was on duty, I would hang out with her and people frequently assumed I was also an RA because I was always there. We would walk together to the T for internship, or to get our cars for the weekend, or grab dinner when we were sick of the dining hall. Many times we would try and pull all-nighters, and then by 3 a.m. we were both asleep.
Our go-to movies were The Birdcage and The Lion King. We loved having family dinner night where we cooked dinner in the house kitchen (usually spaghetti with ground turkey because she didn’t eat red meat), and settled in with our respective drinks — wine for her, Twisted Tea for me. Our weekend treats (sometimes weekdays if needed) were trips to Starbucks for iced chai. One time we all played hide and seek and she told me to hide in the dryer, so I did (and almost got stuck). I loved taking naps in her papasan chair. I knew I could always go to her for anything and she felt the same about me. She frequently joked about my intuition on guys and how I was always right if a guy was bad news. We would talk for hours about the most mundane things or serious life decisions. We were so alike that sometimes we would argue and get into spats, but we always made up.
For our last spring break, we took a road trip together down to Alabama to go on a cruise to Mexico. The cruise was full of other annoying spring breakers, but we got to relax in the sunshine, play trivia, eat delicious food, and hit up the hot tub before bed every night. On the 30-hour road trip each way, we sang along to music and ate junk food and made up silly stories. I got her to try Chik-Fil-A for the first time. We thought we were going to die at our motel in North Carolina because a drunk guy outside insisted this was his room. By the end of the trip, we were sick of each other and being in my Ford Focus. Of the four spring breaks I had in college, this one was my favorite.
In the summer time, everyone in our friend group would road trip it down to the Cape where her family would host us and we’d go for adventures. Sometimes it was a trip to the beach, sometimes it was taking a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard or driving up to Provincetown, and sometimes it was just watching movies in her backyard on the projector. Her house felt like a second home to me. I was so glad that I was able to take time off in the summer of 2020 to go down by myself for a long weekend. We hit up our usual spots and while it was weird not to have so many people with us, it was nice to just hang out together after not seeing each other for a full year.
I had no idea it would be the last time I’d see Cassie in person, but I’m so glad I did.
Even though we grew apart after college due to work and grad/law school, we could always pick right back up where we left off. It was a friendship that I knew would last a long time. I just didn’t think our time would be cut short, and sometimes I feel like I took it for granted. But I’m glad these last five years were filled with a million memories I’ll cherish forever.
I want to be okay again, but I don’t know how. It’s not something I can just get over one day. People talk about grief all the time and I used to kind of brush it off, because it had never happened to me. I didn’t understand how much it could affect someone. I didn’t think I’d have to experience it right now. I would never wish this on anyone. It sucks and it hurts and everything reminds me of Cassie. I don’t know if that will ever go away.
I will never understand why it had to be Cassie. Out of the millions of bad people in the world, it was Cassie who was chosen to leave us. She had so many friends and a family who loved her. She had her whole life ahead of her. I know this means I should live my life to the fullest because she couldn’t. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to heal from this.
One thing I’m struggling with most is that I can’t say it out loud. I can’t just say “Cassie died”. I can say the word “passed” but the word “death” feels so blunt. It feels inappropriate. I keep telling myself to say out loud. I think it multiple times, and practically yell in my head to just SAY IT!
I can’t do it. My best friend died and I don’t know when I’ll be able to let the words come out of my mouth.
