It’s a five letter word, and yet even people in their seventies, eighties, and older don’t truly understand it. It happens because of the decay of cells and shutting down of organs, it comes in many different forms, and so far there is no cure though not for lack of trying.

Death.

My first experience with it was when I was nine -- five-ish years ago. It was a cold, grey November day; the wind was blowing, the trees were near-barren, and puddles spanned like lakes over the asphalt. It was a school field trip to Bonneville Dam. It was supposed to be a day away from the stuffy classroom and multiplying and dividing. We were supposed to learn about Salmon and hydroelectric power, not mortality, and yet it would forever be impressed into the brains of those who went on it as that.

We stood in line as the teachers counted us and made sure everything was in order when there was a sudden commotion. Some teachers ran to the commotion, others herded us inside; as I passed by, I saw what it was. It was a friend of mine -- a girl named Hannah -- laying on the ground, her dirty blonde hair splayed out on the concrete, her eyes wide open, and her body still.

You’d think having a classmate collapse would put a damper on the day, but the teachers managed to distract us. Sure, there were a couple of whispers, and the girl standing beside her said she reached down to tie her shoe and then collapsed when she was repeatedly asked, but for the most part it was just like any other field trip. We fed fish, crowded around to get a glimpse of a seal, and actually enjoyed our learning. That would all fly out the window when we got off the buses back at our school and were filed into the gym.

Hannah was dead, they announced.

They split us up into groups of four or five, handed out an announcement page in light blue, and had the staff try to talk to us. The teacher’s assistant assigned to my group had us pass an object around the circle and share how we felt; I volunteered my glove when they needed an object, but I passed when it came around to me.

That evening, at home, I handed the announcement to my mom; I sat in one of the dining room chairs and she stood over me reading it, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. She’d only met Hannah once or twice and she was crying, whereas Hannah was my friend and I hadn’t shed a single tear.

That, I think, was what struck me the most. I didn’t cry. Our teacher, Mr. Park, was too grief-stricken to come into class the next day -- as was half the class -- and they had grief counsellors on hand while they had us drawing pictures and watching TV. A day without academics was usually one for celebration, and yet the lights were dim and everything was somber. And I felt…

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposed her model of grief: DABDA. The acronym stands for denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I was smack-dab in the middle of that first stage, with a hint of the second one as I was irritated at how big a deal everyone was making of it. I’m not sure I ever entered the bargaining stage, or if I did it was brief.

Depression though… Well, I think even back then I was clinically depressed but that’s not really the point. This stage didn’t set in until Hannah’s funeral; I was still numb at that point, in shock, when I took my seat near the back and waited for it to start. They dimmed the lights and started a slideshow, and that was when the dam broke.

I balled.

I balled so hard that the woman sitting next to us offered me more tissues, considering mine were at that point completely sodden. Talk about waterworks.

Even when the lights went back up, her parents spoke, and a few students -- me included -- were called up to speak, I was still sobbing. I read my piece, breath hitching and almost indecipherable. My eyes felt itchy, my cheeks stung, and my lungs burned but the tears would not stop. It hurt but it was for the best.

Acceptance came easier than depression. It wasn’t some ah-ha moment, or like a lightbulb going on; it glided in on softly feathered wings. Life moved on for me, for our class. There were still times when I thought about her; I visited her grave a few times over the years, and we planted flowers in honor of her in front of the school, but life continued and it was okay.

When we went to Bonneville Dam that day, we expected to learn about fish and water. We learned something else though -- something worse, bigger, and for the better all in one. We learned about death and life.