A Friend too Good to Last

Mark  - the very name makes me think of him, and pushes me to recall the painful incident.  He was ten at the time, only a few weeks older than I was.  It makes me wonder why, why his time had to come so soon.   1

The sun smiled warmly down on my family as we bid our goodbyes.  We had been visiting my dad’s friend’s house in Keene, NH.  We visited often, and Mark, their son, and I became fast friends.  My dad and his dad had been childhood friends, doing everything together.  Throughout the years, their closeness grew to include their expanding families.  We celebrated Christmas, birthdays, and other holidays with them.  My sister and I loved going there, and playing with their children, Mark and Lauren, who was a year older than my sister.2

“ See ya later,” I called out to him.3

“Bye,” he said, waving.  At the time, I had no idea that he was saying goodbye forever.  4

A few days later, I was sitting on my bed, reading a cheesy Babysitter’s Club book, when my mom came in.  I glanced up, and was startled to see a few lone tears dribbling down her cheeks.  Immediately, I feared that something was terribly wrong.  I was shocked to see her crying, after living my life believing that adults didn’t cry.5

“Christy, I have something to tell you,” she said slowly, her eyes full of pain.  “I don’t know how to say this....... but Mark died yesterday afternoon.”6

I froze, and I felt a sudden chill slither up my back.  No, I thought, it wouldn’t, couldn’t happen to him, to me.  Why, just a week ago I had seen him.  Thoughts raced through my head at the speed of light, all of them ending with the same unanswered question - Why?  She must have been joking, I concluded.  But when I looked into her eyes, I saw that she was not.7

That night I couldn’t sleep.  I kept thinking, I don’t want to die, over and over and over again.  It scared me to know that it could happen to anyone, even someone my age.  Until then, death had always seemed distant to me, something that happened to everyone, except for me.  8

I found out what had happened the next morning.  He had been playing capture the flag with his friends in the center of his town.  Mark had just gotten the flag and started running, one of his friends on his heels.  Somehow, Mark ended up in the road.  A car came and crashed into him, running him over.  Any chance of him surviving was stolen when the car slid him over into the next lane and another car ran over him.  He died instantly.9

A few weeks later, my parents attended his funeral.  They had given my sister and I a choice, but I decided not to go.  I know that if I saw his battered body in a box, I would have broken down and cried, something I didn’t want to do.  10

Mark was more than a friend, he was like my brother, and his death has changed my life drastically.  I learned that you cannot take life for granted.  It is a precious gift that can be taken away without warning.  11

Till this day, I still can not believe that he is gone, but the most important thing that I realized was that sometimes, you can never know how much someone means to you, until they are taken away.12