During my second year of medical school, I lost a friend. We all lost a friend. She was riding her bike home from class and was hit by a speeding driver. He was under no influence other than anxiety over not being somewhere else. We all experience this at one time or another. He dealt with it by speeding and disregarding a yellow light. His anxiety cost my friend her life.
She inspired me to pick up my passions. One day in class we were sitting next to each other and we struck up a conversation about passion and how we each follow it. I told her that one of my biggest passions is music, and that I play guitar. Because of who she was, her next request was that I learn something new and play for her. After all, she would love to hear it and I would love to play it, We would both benefit. It took me a while, but I finally found a piece to learn. It was really exciting, and a beautiful composition for the classical guitar.
All quarter I had been studying the piece of music. Learning it slowly and methodically. She had asked me to play it for her when I was finished. Each week she checked in with me to see how my progress was coming, and encouraged me to keep going, even through midterms (which is no small task!). She was a shining star, one of the only people I have ever met with that level of compassion and lively embrace of life's mysteries. I couldnt wait to play it for her when I was finished. It was simply a matter of time. Occasionally, we cannot really understand the meaning of this phrase.
I worked on finishing the piece over the course of a weekend in the winter quarter. On that Monday I wrote her and e-mail and said that I would love to get together soon because I was practically finished. She replied on Wednesday that we should set up a lunch date for the following Monday. I replied on Thursday and said that worked out perfectly. I had another weekend to practice and appreciate the experience of choosing something difficult to learn while being supported by a friend.
On Friday my wife and I went to dinner with some close friends. We were leaving the restaurant to meet them for after dinner drinks when I got the call. She had been hit by a truck on her way home from school that afternoon. She had suffered massive injuries to her skull immediately upon contact with the road and was clinically brain dead by the time she arrived in the hospital.
We grieved as a loving community, as a group of friends, as classmates, all of us mourning the passing of a rare kind of person. We knew we were worse off without her. We still are.
I never was able to play that piece of music for her. I played it in dedication to her many times, and for other friends who were close with her. But never for her in person. I miss her, and every time I hear this song, I think of her.
Here is the piece that I learned and dedicated to my lost friend. It is "Julia Florida" by Augustin Barrios Mongore:
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