Dealing With Grief – The Passing Of My Friends (High On Life)

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Dealing With Grief - The Passing Of My Friends (High On Life)

My biggest fear in life has always been death.

Ask anyone who really knows me, I literally can’t think of anything scarier than death. It’s been like that since I was a little girl…

Dealing With Grief - The Passing Of My Friends (High On Life)

Of course, many people are scared of death BUT I’ve never met anyone in my entire life that has had such an issue/trauma and a phobia with death other than myself.

Through my 33 years of living, I have met many amazingly inspiring, deep and beautiful people from around the world. Many of which I’ve had the convos about death with. It always intrigued me to hear different peoples point of view on death; if they are scared, what they believe happens after you die…maybe it was to find some enlightenment through my trauma with death. I guess I also thought I’d find someone out there, who would make me view “the scariest thing in the world” as a not so scary thing but I’m hard to argue with or make believe something other than what I truly believe if I had my mind made up on it and well “death” is a huge one.

Too Young To Die & My Experience With Death 

The thing with my personal experiences with death, it’s that everyone I ever knew that was close to me who has passed away, was always too young. That alone has always caused me to fear the enable.

Learning About Death At Age 7

My first introduction to death happened when I was about 7-8 years old, when 3 of my classmates in 3rd grade burned themselves to death in a storage unit at a preschool, which was located right outside my grandparent’s house, whom I was living with at the time. It happened over the weekend and the trauma of hearing the parents early Sunday morning screaming and crying outside my window has haunted me to this day. For years I was scared to visit my grandparent’s house because of that incident (especially at night), to be honest…years later, as in now, as an adult, I feel that very same way.

I’ve always had a sixth sense since I was little and for those who don’t believe in the supernatural world, I guess it would be hard to understand. However, the actual Friday that this tragic accident happened with my classmates, I was playing after school with my friends and was walking home from their house at sunset with my brother. I remember seeing the gate of the pre-school opened and looking at it deeply wondering why would it be opened, it’s always locked after school. I kept repeatedly thinking about it the entire weekend and then Sunday morning, I was in shock and in disbelief at the news. Maybe I could have saved them, but who would have ever known or thought that a preschool gate being left open can lead to such a thing.

Losing My Beloved Grandparents

2 years later, my amazing grandfather died and as a 9-year old, I thought I could never cry that much in my entire life. I didn’t believe a person has the capability to obtain that many tears in their system. That was all true to me until I lost my grandma, my role model and my hero in life at the age of 15. Then I realized I had no idea what real griefing was really about.

The death of my grandma changed me and shaped me into a whole other person. From the age of 15, I don’t think there has been a single day in my life that I haven’t thought about her. I’m not over it and I don’t think I’ll ever be over it because of what she meant to me. She was my best friend, the person who always believed in me and all of my wildest dreams and the only person I ever felt like really got me. I think of them both daily, but her more so because I was closer to her and had her longer.

My grandpa was only 59 when he passed, exactly a month before his 60th birthday and my grandpa at 61.

However, what I do know is that she and my grandpa are with me every step of the way in life, I feel them and know that they are there with me through everything great that I do or accomplish and through the hard times they give me light.

I also feel like they have saved me through a few near-death experiences. The moment I was safe and didn’t end up dying, I knew it was them and G*d that saved me.

I’ve probably had 3-4 moments of almost true death, where my entire life had flashed before my eyes and seconds felt like hours in slow motion. Most recently, last year in Iceland with my boys from High On Life, which is a bit ironic…don’t you think?

Related: 

The Night I Almost DIED In Iceland

How I Almost Died Once, While Being A Model

Stephan 

Another important death to me and the first funeral I went to was the passing of a friend Stephan when I was 13, in middle school, who got into a fight with a few kids over something so stupid as “spitballs” through a straw and a boy punched him in the face after school, hit him in the temple, next to his face and he rolled down the stairs and died.

My entire life I have thought of Steph through big life-changing events; getting my driver license, going to prom, graduating high school, falling in love, attending weddings, so many things normal people get to expierence that he never did. It has made me humble, grateful and appreciative of my life and everyone that’s in it.

The cruelty and pain of someone passing so young is honestly so unbearable and heart-shattering to me. It’s something I’ll never be able to grasp my head around.

Why Death Scares Me Personally

My fear with death always came from dying before making all of my dreams come true. The ironic part is that my list of dreams only gets longer and biggest as the years go by, I cross something off and add 10 more things. My fear also comes from not doing enough, not seeing enough, not experiencing enough — enough of anything and everything worth experiencing.

Grateful 

I’m fortunate enough to have not dealt with too many close people that I know dying (and thank G*D for that!). I feel incredibly grateful and blessed and wish that it would never change, but that’s just not how this world was created huh?

I am incredibly grateful for each and every single moment I get to breathe. I am incredibly grateful to have the people that I care about so much in my life be around for as long as they have and I never ever take that for granted and I really truly can only hope that you do the very same thing.

In the last 17 years, I have been so blessed and humbled by the fact that I haven’t had to face or deal with death until now. Not that I’m ok with dealing with it now, I’m totally NOT ok with dealing with it now but happy to have 17 years of bliss.

Yes, of course, I’ve known people who have passed but not insanely close to me in 17 years.

The Passing Of My Boys From High On Life

Now at the age of 33 (as of 2 weeks ago), I’ve been dealing with a new reality, something I or anyone is never ready to face or handle.

As many of you know by now, on July. 3th, 2018, the world has lost 3 beautiful souls; Ryker Gamble, Alexey and Megan Scraper also known as the High On Life.

The news broke out to me late July. 4th and my shock and disbelief over the entire tragic accident has been overwhelming to me in ways I don’t even know how to express into words. I have tried in different ways to express the overly shocking emotions I have been dealing with in the two months here and there on social media but the reality is that I just can’t put my full emotions into words.

My heart literally aches every time I try to make sense of it. I get insanely overly emotionally. It doesn’t seem to be real, I keep wishing, praying and hoping its just a bad dream I’m in and I just want to wake up from and I just can’t. I really can’t. I refuse to accept this as a reality.

Watching their videos is hard AF. I’ve tried. and when I do, I can’t seem to make sense of it. There is such a shocking factor that can’t be put into words. They look SO ALIVE. So silly, so funny, so engaging, so energic, so happy, so…High On Life. Relating sadness to such carefree, happy, bubbly and energic people doesn’t quite make sense to me…it just doesn’t.

For the last few weeks, there hasn’t been a day or a moment that they haven’t crossed my mind. I lay in bed for hours, saying to myself “tonight you will go to sleep early and get a good night sleep”, but I honestly can’t. The moment I get into bed, I just replay what I think happened that day, I try to answer questions I’ll never have the answers to and all of it keeps me up at night for hours — including at this very moment 5:19am.

For the first week and a half, I couldn’t get out of my house. Not even for something small. I couldn’t turn on my TV. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone but my family and close friends. I cared for nothing related to my career, my health, I could barely eat and when I did I’d do it while crying. I lost track of time, dates, days. Then reality clicked in that I had to pay my rent and I had to leave my cave I’ve been hiding in and the moment that was dealt with, I went right back to it. I can easily say that I probably left my house less than 7 times in the July month. I didn’t want to face the world. I just wanted to fly out to Canada and see them, one last time.

That’s the funny thing about life right, you always want one more time. One more hug, one more laugh, one more kiss, one more, one more… but it’s never really enough, is it?…

I feel like I have lost a piece of my heart, a piece of my soul. Gone too fast, gone too young.

We all grieve differently. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. Different things affect us all differently. No one can judge us or blame us for it. Some grieve in anger others through sadness. Some shut down others try to stay busy. Some of us want to be around people and others want to be simply left alone.

How I Dealt With My Friends Passing

I believe in the energy of lighting candles for those who passed. It’s a Jewish belief. We believe in lighting a candle and saying a prayer to uplift the soul to heaven. I’ve been doing that every Friday for them, when lighting my Shabbat Candles.

I also went to my “happy place”, the beach — Malibu, bought some roses, said a prayer for them during sunset and throw them into the ocean.

I had put all my summer plans on pause. I was planning on flying to Israel, Italy, Mykonos, Nice and Monaco in late July for a month and the moment I heard the news, I had to cancel my travels and put them and life on pause because I felt like I had to fly out to Canada for their funeral. My mom thought this was odd and shocking of me. She knows that nothing scares me more than funerals and cemeteries. I avoid them at every cause because I’m too much of an empathic and hyperly sensitive person to be able to handle that, but I had to, I just had to face my fears for them.

I was literally on call, just waiting to find out the dates so that I can fly out there, I guess I thought that they would all be buried together, but every family had a different plan for their child, which of course, makes sense. So everyone was buried at different times over a month period.

However, they did have a “celebration of life” a tribute to them in Canada and I knew I had to be there for that, there were no questions asked. So I did, I fly out to Vancouver, Canada to attend the event — my first time in Canada.

Oddly enough, a few days before their passing, I was talking to Ryker about coming out there to visit them and he promised me a good time. 🙁

The Celebration of Life was beautiful. It was hard AF. The moment I arrived, my heart ached to a whole other degree, seeing Ryker’s girlfriend, Aylssa, the rest of the boys from High On Life (Parker, Kenzo, Justin, Joshua, etc) and the parents killed me. And at the same time, I felt a relief to finally get to see and meet the people I couldn’t get out of my mind for a month. Giving them a hug meant the world to me. I’ve been so worried about everyone for so long that I felt like I needed to go out there and support them, hug them, be with them and of course, be in the presence and spirit of some of the most amazing people I’ve come across my entire life, Ryker and Alexey.

It was amazing to see that over 1000 people showed up to their Celebration of Life. What an amazing, inspiring and touching moment, yet so so hard to bare.

I cried my life away for hours.

In a way, it feels like it happened too long ago, like a weird lucid dream. Everything happened so fast and before I knew it, it was time to leave.

My High On Life Shirt <3 Leaving Vancouver

Leaving Vancouver was another challenged on its own. When I got to the airport, for a second I got confused. Every trip I take, I always have a bucket list for things I have to accomplish. When I got to the airport, I was like “WAIT!!! But I didn’t even get to see Ryker and Alexey. I got to see Parker, but I didn’t get to see them!” and then once again, reality kicked in and I lost myself in tears for hours walking through the airport, boarding my flight and on the plane. Once again, it all didn’t make sense to me. Once again, it didn’t feel real. I felt like it was an end of a chapter that I just wasn’t willing to let go of.  🙁

At The End Of The Day…

Iceland with Alexey, Ryker & Parker

What I can tell is once again, my life will never be the same. I know that people pass away and that’s just the way the world works. People keep saying you have to move on but to be honest, I don’t want to move on. I don’t want them to be forgotten. I don’t want anyone to ever forget them and what they stood for and who they are. I think when it comes to moving on from death, everyone has to do it in their own time. You’re allowed to take all the time in the world that you need. No one can tell you when it will happen, you and only you know what’s best for you.

I feel peoples, their pain, their sadness, their joy, their energy and their souls.

As an empathic person, I take things wayyyy personally. Sometimes too personally and yes, it fucks me up sometimes — most times, all the time. But I’d rather be a person who feels something than be numb to life and do life on autopilot.

The bright side of death? The kindness that death brings out of people. Watching that is a beautiful thing. People coming together, being compassionate, being in touch with their soul, with what really matters. That to me is the beauty in death. The entire world showed their compassion over the death of Ryker, Alexey and Megan, people came together, helped each other, dedicated tribute in their honor, the world was moved by them, their message, their legacy, what they left behind, the dreams they had and what they were trying to accomplish through their short time here.

I will forever remember them. Miss them and love them.

I will forever think of them in every magical sunset, in every airplane window above the clouds and every adventure I take through my travels and life.

If there is anything to take from this is to be more humble, more compassionate, always, not just in time of need. To always dream big, to chase your dreams, to concur your dreams and to never let life pass you by because we never know if tomorrow will come.

If you’ve been reading until here, I thank you for taking the time to read this, for being a caring and compassionate person.

I love you. xoxo

Forever High On Life Inspired

#HOLinspired

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