They Aren't Just Names On A List

At the age of 23 I feel like I have seen more death than the average 23 year old should ever have to experience. A few years back I had to say good bye to my cousin who was younger than me. That may have been the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. We grew up together, he lived next door, we went on adventures together.. It was supposed to last longer than that. His death was an accident, nothing could have been done to prevent it. I was mad at the driver of that vehicle for a long time. It's the closest I ever came to hating someone. But with a lot of prayer and even more time I realized that there was no one to blame. It could have happened to anybody. But that pain was something no one should ever have to go through. Losing someone unexpectedly is something you never really get over. It changes the way you think, the way you feel, it changes who you are. 

Less than a week ago a young person took his life because he was being bullied at school. Why does it always take a tragedy to bring a community together? Our community has lost enough young people to know how precious life really is. I feel like in high school you should have some amount of common sense. At some point as a young adult you have to grow a brain and realize that the words that fly out of your mouth have an impact in some way. Someone shouldn't have to tell you to stop being a bully, you should have learned that in second grade. I lost my cousin to an accident. Bullying is preventable and should have been stopped before it reached the point that it did.