"A Love Never Lost" by Lauren Denault

Tonight my blog was not written by me, it was written by my beautiful friend Lauren. Me and Lauren go all the way back to Kindergarten and she has been my best friend ever since I knew what those were. This picture is us at my senior prom and I have got to say we were the best looking couple of the bunch. I wanted to get Lauren's story out there because it's one that I couldn't personally relate to but it's one that maybe some of you have gone through. The soul purpose of my blog is to reach out to people and give them stories that they can relate to and give them hope or a sense of relief. I hope some of you get something out of this! So here is Lauren's story!

"The last thing that ever crosses any typical teenagers mind is having your family slowly decrease in size. The last thing that anyone ever wants to happen is letting the people that mean most to you, slip right out of your life. Death is a weird and confusing concept. It’s hard to understand when you’ve never experienced it. It’s hard to see the purpose of it when everyone you’ve come into contact with is living. When you have someone who is your better half, your partner in crime, you role model, and everything you aspire to be, you expect that person to be there your entire life, because where else can they go?

I am the youngest of three siblings, two of which have a 7-10 year age gap from me, the other, 15 months. Already you can speculate that one would obviously have a closer bond with the sibling who is closer in age. My sister, Courtney, and I did absolutely everything together. We weren’t the typical sisters, we didn’t fight or try and strangle each other, we actually enjoyed being around one another. We chose to hangout together, we chose to include each other when we were with our other friends. Wherever one went, the other was sure to follow. We never thought of each other as tag-alongs or the annoying sibling. We were best friends by choice, not just because we were related.

Courtney struggled to fit in since she began school at the young age of 4. She was put in all of the regular classes, with the normal students but it always took her a little bit longer to comprehend what was going on in. She tried as hard as she could to be like her peers, especially when the hormones started to kick in. She wanted so badly to feel like she belonged, but the other kids wanted no part of that. pre-teens can be the most vicious people, they found every little weakness Courtney had and magnified it. They never let her forget that they didn’t think she was one of them. Her ears were a little too big… “dumbo” she was tall and skinny… “anorexic.” These kids found every thing they could to make sure her life in school wasn’t a pleasant one. However, the amazing thing about Courtney is that she smiled at those kids every single day. She constantly treated them with respect and always gave them the time of day. She didn’t belittle them the way they did her. She was above them, but they didn’t want to magnify that.

After years and years of bullying, it broke through her tough exterior. She began to believe the lies they told her every single day. She began to feel as though she really wasn’t worth anything. The only outlet she found that was relieving to her was cutting. No amount of drugs or rehab, though, could help this girl. At the young age of 16, Courtney finally decided that she had had enough, she couldn’t handle the pain and depression any longer. She committed suicide on April 22, 2009 when I was only a freshman in high school. Finding any good in her death was not a quest I was willing to take. However, after about 5 months of hating myself and everyone else for doing this to her, I found that the best way for me to ever be okay with it, was to help those who were struggling with it. All of the people who teased her finally opened their eyes and saw what all of those years of pointless taunting had done to her. Finally saw what effect those mean words can have on someone. It’s so awful that it took the death of a beautiful soul for people to see all of the hurt and suffering they had caused. The world is an ugly place. People pay no mind to the meaning of their words; they’re just worried about will benefit them...usually by the expense of another. She allowed herself to be the butt of everyone’s jokes because she didn’t want them to feel the same pain as her. In honor of her effortless caring to everyone she met, I befriended the people who never gave her the time of day. I sat there with those ugly individuals while they cried their eyes out because of how much they missed her. I believe that everyone deserves a second chance, courtney believed that too. She knew exactly what she was doing when she decided to leave us. She knew that it would have to take her death in order to change the views of everyone in our small town. She changed a lot of people’s lives both when she was alive and after her death. I promise her every day that I will continue her positivity towards everyone. I will give everyone a chance, even if they don’t deserve it, because life is too short to be cruel to someone. You never know if those mean, ugly words you said to someone will be the last thing they hear from you...and then you’re going to have to live with that. When someone dies, you lose every chance you had to make things right with him/her. Do you really want to live with yourself, knowing that you did everything in your power to make sure that an individual was unhappy, or knowing that you did everything in your power to help turn someone’s life around for the better. For me, I’d rather put a smile on someone’s face than make them cry themselves to sleep that night. Even though I lost the best person I have ever met, she has given me so much strength and the desire to be a better person. Life is too short to be mean, it’s way easier to love people. One of the biggest things I have learned, through all of this is that there is always a reason for why things happen. We may not see it right away or even want to, but years later, events serve a purpose. Courtney’s death has served a lot of purposes, a lot of which I am still uncovering, but her life also had a purpose. Everyone’s life has a purpose, but it’s up to you whether you choose to see it or not."