"Why Does Someone Have to Die?"

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.  
                                                                                                     --The Hours--

In my life, recently, a beautiful girl died.  

Her death was sudden and unexpected, though she had been sick for a while, and it really shook the foundation of my world in a way I didn't expect.  Of course, as anyone might, I cried (and cried and cried and cried) and let a numbness take over my insides so that I could still get up and go to work, and feed the chickens, and walk the dogs, and get on with life like nothing had changed (even though it had).  
Because I am where I am right now, I was not able to visit her family or go to her funeral or DO anything to try and make it better, and that was a terrible feeling to me.  I hate feeling like something is wrong, and there isn't anything I can do about it.  This experience taught me, however, that sometimes my "doing something," as selfless and good-intentioned a place as it comes from inside me, gives me the added benefit of not having to focus on my own feelings.  I get to lock those away in a dark quiet place while I "do something."  
Not being able to go to the funeral or support the family (except by sending a card or a text, etc) forced me to sit with how I felt about this beautiful girl's life and death.  What I found was this.  Her death was making me rethink my own life.  Where am I?  Is it where I want to be?  Who am I?  Is it who I want to be?  How am I spending my time--my precious, precious short time?  How do I want to be spending it?  

In one of my favorite books, "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham, there is a line that haunts me right now, 

"Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more."   

This is the gift that I have been given by the death of my beautiful friend.  I get the chance to look at my life, and to value it more.  We have all been granted a certain amount of time on this world, and we never know when our time is going to be up.  Shai, in her death, gave me this gift--she reminded me that I get to choose how my story is written, and if I don't like the way it is going, I am the ONLY ONE who has the power to change it.  She reminded me that I need to value the time that I have, and I need to be conscious of how I spend that time.  

I look at the answers to the questions that she made me ask myself: 

Am I where I want to be?  No.

Am I who I want to be?  No. 

Am I spending my time the way I want to?  No.  

What is stopping me?  How do I DO SOMETHING about that?  That's what she has made me ask myself.  It was a lesson, a reminder, that I desperately needed.  

Thank you, Shai.  I love you, I miss you, and I hope that your pain is gone and you are in peace.