I think it's time to make a post about my special friend in Heaven, Zach. It will be nine years on May 21st, since he took his journey from Earth to be with God...and in those nine years, there has
never been a single day that this sweet friend of mine hasn't crossed my mind. I don't care if it's been for 5 minutes or on and off for an entire day...he crosses my mind. Now, some of you may be asking "who is Zach?"...and the straightest answer I can give is "a forever friend, who impacted my life in so many more ways than I ever could have thought possible upon meeting him when we were in the 8th grade." I won't get into how I met Zach because that would make this post what I don't want it to be. Zach was killed in a car accident on the night of our high school graduation. Yeah...it's one of those scenarios, unfortunately. Even as I write this, it's hard for me to imagine being in that time again...and it's hard for me to shake what was likely my sweet friends' last moments here. I still have his senior picture in the white picture frame I put it in the day he gave me...just a couple of weeks before his accident.
When I got the phone call informing me of the accident, I could not believe it. It took a couple of more people telling me just to get me to begin to comprehend. Zach lived down the street from me, and I knew that what I was hearing was not true-I would look down the street and see his car in his driveway. Walking outside in my pajamas, at the young age of 18...I looked down the street at my friends house. Nope. His car was not in the driveway. I went back to my house and sat down outside, just crying. I had never lost anyone close to me...
my age. I remember thinking that since it hadn't been too long since I had seen him, maybe 10 hours at that point, he could come back somehow. I just kept picturing a staircase from here to Heaven that Zach was climbing...but if he knew how much we all wanted him here he could turn around and come back. Every day that I had seen Zach, which was almost 7 days a week, I had told him how good of a friend he was to me and that I "just loved him". At that moment, on that day, I could only hope that he left his life on earth knowing that I had meant what I said.
Understandably, much of that day is a blur. I slept throughout a good chunk of it and surrounded myself with friends...hoping that the day would just move to a distant place. Nine years later-it still hasn't. As the hours passed, I realized that I didn't want anything to speed up, because I knew that there were certain things I would never get back. I knew that I could never say "Zach was just here yesterday" and "I just went to Zach's house last week", etc. again. I didn't want to move on. I wanted to hold on to every feeling that I felt-I wanted to remember my friend's voice-most of all I just wanted to say "goodbye, I'll miss you more than you'll ever know".
The day before his funeral, I went to the grocery store to get balloons and flowers to take to the funeral home. There, all around me, were balloons with "Congratulations Graduate" and graduation cards-just everywhere. A few days before, I had been
just a high school graduate. Now, I was a grieving friend, picking out things to take to the funeral home that my friend was in. I remember just standing in that store with tears streaming down my face the entire time. I look back now and just can't figure out "why". When I look back, I
still couldn't grasp what was happening. The funeral is also a pretty big blur. I remember songs, I remember a lot of people. I remember pictures. But I think our minds have a good way of etching things out to ease pain over time. At the cemetery I left long before Zach's casket started to go into the ground. I just couldn't bear the thought of my friend, my age, someone who had been there anytime, and I mean
anytime, that I needed him, no longer being here.
It has been nine years,
9, since I've seen my friend. I haven't kept in touch with a lot of people that I graduated with-and I'm more than okay with that. Life moves on, people move on, I've moved on. However, sometimes when the sun hits just right, I see something so beautiful that there are no words to explain, or I hear those words of encouragement telling me "you can do this" after I've done everything but give up...I know it's my friend keeping in touch with me from Heaven. It's taken me nine years to write about Zach, in fear that I would leave something out, or not do justice to his impact on my life. I still feel like I haven't gotten it just right. But I don't think I will ever be able to get it just right.
