Death is often associated with old people, those of long, deep wrinkles that tell repeated stories. But death itself is young; it sneers an unaging smirk whilst extending its growing roots to surround us. 

As all my family members and classmates knew, May and I were best friends who shared a soul and a voice. A person whose laughter makes a joke funnier, May has a sunflower smile that dazzles to hide her sorrows. May’s mother died when she was young, and she was sent to live with her foster parents who could barely shoulder the name of a “parent.” As we sat in the basketball court whilst the school security guards took their leave, May always talked about being hit and insulted by her parents without turning a hair or even letting tears drop. For an instant, her calm countenance resembles twilight, the partially lit beauty caught between illumination and darkness. It was as if she was not entailed in her own life, but a mere narrator she was. A naive confidante I was to believe that calmness signifies successful detachment! No one knows when the sun will leave until darkness is all that is left. 

All that I could remember was that it was late on December 24th when I got the call. A Christmas eve should always be merry, I thought, how should anyone be interrupting my sweetest dreams? I picked up the phone, half irritated, and waited. It was from the hospital, informing me that May had committed suicide and failed to be cured. Like what May always claimed, suicide was the most fearless and at the same time cowardly thing to do. At that moment, without understanding her motive, my whole state of mind embraced darkness and forlornness while liveliness, hope, and desire of any kind dwindled away silently, cold and dead. I smacked myself to wake up from this nightmare, but the red print of my pawn lingered on my tearful face. There was a self-righteous voice in my head, acting as sense against my sensibility, to acknowledge that she was gone. I was not caught up in a nightmare. Reality itself is a nightmare. I cried and shouted but I could not hear myself. Images of May and me flashed by in my head: her solemn gaze, her gigglish speeches, her unbearable dances, her off-of-tune covers, and a happy friend sitting by her side unknowing of her sadness. 

I had no idea how the days seemed to have flown past after her death and my mental breakdown. Life is like a notebook filled with pages of memories, and time is what tears the pages off elegantly, one by one. I never seemed to accept reality whereas I just lived on. Things changed that day, however, when I went to visit her grave and saw how the flowers put on the ground seemed to shrivel and how the trees dropped their leaves. This time, I did not complain about why the beauty and the appreciated ones don’t linger for one bit longer. Happiness, alongside sadness, will never be there forever. They don’t disappear though. It is just that they are hidden in the deepest wisdom and courage in life. Brevity is a virtue and will forever be one. Withered flower petals are written with fading reminiscence that eventually says farewell to regrets, to the uncarved wistfulness. The cruelty of death is unextinguishable, but with one absent-minded leap in the mind and with overwhelming woes sliding gracefully down the inexorable passage of time, death’s depraved means will have no legacy. 

It was Christmas again, and I just came to realize that this was to be the first time I actually celebrated Christmas after May’s death. I ran to the school tower and looked up. Yes, you can actually see the highest tip of the tower if you stood far away enough. Then I walked past Mr. Lee’s bookstore which somehow became our secret corner because of the lack of customers. It is now remodeled with flashy blue paint and overly sized stars that look out of place, so I guess May was right about Mr. Lee who wore the same type of Levi’s jeans all year long has no aesthetic senses. Our neighborhood bought a giant Christmas tree again before the fountain but it was for the first time that I looked straight in the eyes of the greenness. I put on a star on top of the tree with May’s photo on it. Oh, how lovely did she look in the photo! Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I looked up at the boundless night sky that was trumpeting with the silent glimmers of faraway stars. 

Dear May, cowabunga! It’s Kath. Your beloved Jennifer Lawrence got married two years after you left. Anyway, we’ll meet again somewhere over the rainbow upon the highest sky. I miss you, and merry Christmas.