The Wild Friend

One of the most empathetic and kind human beings I’ve ever met died when we were in the fifth grade.

I was her “wild friend.”

The strangest part about experiencing the death of a classmate at such a young age is how fuzzy the memories have become. I certainly wasn’t equipped to understand or process a loss like that. I remember when she got sick, but for all I’ve tried, I can’t recall the details of her cancer—what type she had, how long she lived after her diagnosis, or what the end was like for her.

So the rest of this story is told from the bits and pieces of my scattered, and likely inaccurate, memory.

But they’re my memories. And the impact is the same.

I knew her for many years. We were in elementary school together. From kindergarten through third grade, I have snippets of memories: playing together at recess, sitting together at lunch, and raucous slumber parties. Doing whatever kids did in the early ’90s.

The first time I realized she was a better human than most was on a cold winter day in third grade.

Some chaotic childhood game was unfolding and, in those days, snow plows would come through the school parking lot and create massive mounds of snow (and dirt and rocks) along the perimeter of our playground.

It must have warmed up in the sun for a while before the temperature plummeted again, because those mounds had turned into mountains of ice.

As I was fleeing a fellow Ninja Turtle or Power Ranger on the playground, I slipped and my face slammed into the ice.

I stayed face-down on the ice mountain, knowing that the cold was definitely making my injury feel better. When I finally started crying and peeled myself from the ground, there was blood in the snow. My friend walked with me to find help.

My lip was busted open. I had a cut on my cheek, along with other abrasions on the left side of my face.

By my recollection, after seeing myself in the bathroom mirror at school, I was a hideously deformed monster, unfit for human eyes.

My lovely classmate and friend stayed by my side the entire day.

When the class was dismissed for lunch, she knew I had no interest in sitting in the lunchroom for all the students to gawk at my face. She asked to eat lunch with me in the classroom and even went through the lunch line for my tray so I could keep my monstrous form hidden.

I think we had ground beef nachos that day.

I transferred schools for fourth grade and saw her less and less. She did attend my birthday slumber party that year, a mix of friends from my old and new schools.

We had a roller-skating party in the garage, which, in hindsight, was ludicrous considering the small size of the space.

I remember giggling, staying up way too late, playing board games, watching movies—Grease and Star Wars.

My memory of learning that my friend had cancer is very brief and confusing.

I think she fell down the stairs at home and went to the hospital. She must have had a scan that showed a tumor. I want to say it was on her spinal cord or on her brain.

I remember being scared to walk down any stairs for a while.

I’d take a deep breath and concentrate.

If I stumbled and fell down the stairs, it might mean that I had cancer too.

I remember the last time I saw her alive.

It was in a Sunday School class. She was wearing a dress and had a purple scarf on her head. She seemed tired.

She still had a smile for everybody.

I was working on a school project in my living room when the call came that my friend had died.

I remember somber faces and someone saying that she had “passed away.”

Such a confusing phrase for a kid to wrestle with. One that I mixed up for years.

I’m sure it was startling to many grown-ups in my life when I said that a friend’s mom had passed away when what I really meant was that she had passed out.

I remember attending the viewing for my friend and having no idea how to talk to anyone.

Now a fifth grader, I had no experience with grief like this. I didn’t know how to interact with her parents or her brothers.

When the day of the funeral came, I had a rehearsal for a school play early that morning. I had to dress for the funeral because I was getting picked up later.

When you wear a nice black dress to school, students automatically joke, “Who died?”

That day, I had to answer:

“My friend died. I’m going to her funeral.”

I can picture where I sat for her funeral in the church I’d grown up attending. I remember singing the hymn “On Eagle’s Wings.”

And that’s it.

That’s all I can remember.

Except for talking with her mom.

I don’t know whether it was at the viewing, the funeral, or on one of the many occasions I would interact with her family over the coming years.

Her mom laughed when she told me that her daughter had always called me her “wild friend.”

My friend comes to my mind from time to time.

I often wonder who she’d be now. Would we have stayed friends? What would she have done with more life to live?

And I always smile when I think about being her wild friend.

Maybe that’s what stays with us when someone dies.

Not every detail.

Not a perfectly preserved memory of their life.

Sometimes it’s a handful of moments.

A playground covered in ice.

Blood in the snow.

A tray of ground beef nachos.

A purple scarf.

A little girl who stayed beside her injured friend because she didn’t want her to feel alone.

And a name she gave me that I’ve carried for the rest of my life.

Her wild friend.

I hope this story reminds us to talk to children frankly about death and dying.

We don’t need to hide behind confusing language like “passed away” when a child is old enough to understand what death means. Children deserve honest, age-appropriate conversations about death. They deserve the chance to ask questions, to be afraid, to be confused, and to grieve.

Kids know what death is, even if they haven’t yet experienced the death of someone they love.

And maybe most importantly, they need to know that the people they love are still allowed to be remembered.

My memories of my friend are scattered. Some may even be wrong.

But she was kind.

She was empathetic.

She stayed by my side when I needed her.

She happily roller-skated in a small suburban garage.

And she called me her wild friend.

I hope the things I do make her laugh and bring her that same chaotic joy from the other side.

I hope I’m living up to her memory by always and forever being her wild friend.