It is a fundamental belief of mine that coincidence hardly exists. People enter into our lives for a reason. At fourteen, I was lucky enough to meet someone who would change my life forever. At fourteen, I was just scratching at the surface of the woman I wanted to become. I was utterly unaware that within two years, the wide-eyed, naïve fourteen-year-old girl I was, would be transformed, almost unrecognizably, by the boy that lived down the street. Transformed not by his smile or the way he sang my name, but by the strength he uncovered in me. By the wisdom he unknowingly passed on and by his death, which has shown me how to live.

Before him, I knew that the sun sometimes set before anyone was ready for it. I had read about pain and watched as my favorite characters on television shows healed their broken selves. I, however, had never felt real pain before. This blissful ignorance was what drew him to me one sunny day in June. I had never known suffering. He had. Living estranged from his father with a mother who he felt hardly cared, he knew what it felt like to be alone. As suddenly as he had entered into my life, he had become its entirety. It’s hard to imagine how that could happen at fourteen. It’s hard to imagine any fourteen year old trying to grasp what love actually means. But as much as a fourteen year old could love, I did. He taught me his dance of solitude and I showed him how to love. He guided me through the trenches of his world and I painted the skyscrapers of mine.

Before him, I had never understood what vulnerability truly was. I had always maintained an aura of protectiveness—hiding myself from the fictitious monsters in books and the scary heartbreaks of television. There was no way I could have known our life together would end almost as suddenly as it began. There is no way that I could have predicted that the last conversation we would have would be one filled with anger. But I always knew that it happened for a reason. After him, I was no longer the naïve, fourteen-year-old girl who watched television to witness pain. Because of him, I stand today stronger. I know what true pain feels like and I know that I am strong enough to survive it. Because of him, I will never let myself to fall victim to my heartbreak. He taught me that I am my own savior. It has given me the chance to become the woman whose surface I was so eagerly scratching at. Coincidence hardly exists. People enter into our lives for a reason. He entered mine to show me how beautifully tragic this world can be, and to let me know I am strong enough to withstand it all.