| 6 April |
The stuff Nicholas Sparks’ novels are made of |
That person ended up being “Lisa”. Lisa was my age, and had one of those personalities that make you want to be around her. She was friendly, smiled a lot, and had these beautiful blue eyes which were magnified by her blond curly hair. In between the first and second classes that I was following Lisa around, I met her boyfriend, “Tyler”. What struck me about these two that day, and that I can still remember, was that they weren’t the typical high school couple. There was no jealousy, no neediness… just a comfortableness that I could sense after a few minutes.
Tyler was a year older than us and played basketball. They had been together for four years, she explained to me in between classes. They didn’t hang all over each other, like most couples our age. Instead they laughed about something that happened in her previous class, kissed, and then he went to go talk to his friends so that she could show me around.
During the next class, I looked over at Lisa’s textbook and noticed that she had written “I love Tyler Lee Smith. Forever.” In the spine. Right next to it, in a more male handwriting were the words “And he loves you. Forever.” Tyler was in that same class as her and I smiled when I caught him looking at her. I took their happy, blissful relationship as a sign that myself and Ex-A would be able to stay together, even if we did move.
Two years later, we had indeed moved and I had been going to the school I had visited for a couple years. Lisa and I didn’t run in the same circle of friends, although we had some mutual friends. Secretly, I still smiled when I saw them in the halls. I also learned little things about them through random conversations.
Lisa had lost her father and uncle in a plane crash when we were in 8thTyler was really there for her through that,” a friend had explained. It made sense then, I thought to myself, why they were so comfortable with each other. They had already been through more things than couples much older than us. grade. “
“One time,” another friend explained, “Lisa forgot her lunch. So Tyler called his mom and had her bring some of Lisa’s favorite food for lunch.”
“His parents love her! They think of her as a daughter.”
There are moments in my life that I’ll never forget: Where I was on 9/11. Seeing MrC for the first time. And when I heard the news that Tyler had died.
I was a junior in high school and working as a casher at a local restaurant. A coworker had came in for her shift while I was standing behind the registers.
“Did you hear?” she asked me.
“About what?”
“Tyler Smith died in a car accident.”
I know it doesn’t make sense that I could feel such a loss for someone I didn’t even know, but my heart dropped. I got sick and felt like I was going to throw up. This couldn’t happen. This couldn’t be right. It had to be someone else. I blinked back tears so I could ask what I didn’t want to know the answer to.
“How did Lisa react?”
They didn’t tell her the day it happened. She had been away in South Carolina at a soccer camp and her mom and his parents decided to wait until the following day when she got back. They told her as soon as she walked in the door. She had passed out, as soon as they told her and had been heavily sedated since.
The rest of my shift I wondered what was going through her head. I pictured her driving back home from soccer camp, unaware of the news that waited her. Maybe making plans to see him that night. Just thinking of the pain of losing the person you thought you would spend the rest of your life with, the person who was right by your side through the death of your father brought the pain back to my stomach and the tears back to my eyes.
They retired his basketball jersey. His best friend wouldn’t leave Lisa’s side. People said that Tyler had made his best friend promise to watch out for Lisa if anything were to happen to him. Some kids at school started a petition to get the road widened where Tyler had had his accident. It was now known that he had slipped off the side of the road, over-corrected and hit a tree.
And still, life went on.
She’s my facebook friend and every once in a while I look at her profile. She’s been in a relationship for a couple years now… or she was the last time I checked. She still goes to Tyler’s parents house for Christmas and Thanksgiving. They still give her birthday presents.
And I know it doesn’t make sense, but my heart still aches for her loss. I can still remember him looking at her with complete adoration those many years ago. And I hope she remembers the same thing.
