Dear Bean
We met in high school at one of those afterschool events that didn’t matter much, except that it brought me to you. I don’t even remember what the event was for, only that we clicked almost instantly. We grew close fast. You were sharp, so funny it caught people off guard, but underneath that humor there was a weight I came to know more about with time. You told me in fragments: the abuse from your father, the absence of your mother, the feeling that you had to carry things alone. We were just teenagers with our own battles. I didn’t always know what to say, but I listened. I stayed. I loved you like a sister. We’d pass memes in class, joke about teachers, send voice notes late at night. You made the pain a little easier to talk about just by being you.
After high school, we started to drift. I went to Fordham; you enrolled at NYU. We were still in the same city, but it felt like we were living in different orbits. Life moved fast. Premed classes, exams, everything piling up. There were a few missed calls, a few texts I meant to answer but didn’t. I told myself I’d get to them later, that you’d understand. Then, after some time, you reached out again. You said things weren’t good, that it felt heavy again. I told you I was here, that I always would be. You said you just needed space. You sounded tired. And I didn’t hear from you again.
It wasn’t until senior year of college that I got a message from your sister asking if I wanted to attend your funeral. I hadn’t heard from her in ages, not since the high school days where you and I would have sleepovers, and she would join. I remember staring at my phone, reading it over and over, not believing what I was seeing. That was how I found out. That was how I lost you. Grief didn’t hit all at once. It came in waves, in the quiet moments. I’d be on the subway or walking to class and suddenly feel like I couldn’t breathe. I kept replaying everything; our last texts, our high school jokes, our time as Bayside’s cheerleaders. I thought about what I should’ve done, what I could’ve said, whether any of it would’ve made a difference.
Since losing you, I’ve started reaching out more. I check in, even when it feels awkward, even when people say they’re fine. Especially then. You taught me that people can be smiling and still silently breaking. That pain isn’t always loud. That support doesn’t always come from having the right words, but from staying, from showing up. I think about you often, in ways I don’t always say out loud. I carry your story with me; when I ask better questions, when I sit with someone’s sadness, when I choose to stay present even in discomfort. You were one of my first lessons in how deeply people can hurt and how much it matters to be seen in that hurt. There’s so much I wish I could go back and do differently. But more than anything, I’m grateful I got to know you at all.