During my senior year of high school, tragedy struck throughout the hallways when the class of 2017 learned about the death of a classmate. That same feeling arose within me again when I heard that another one of my classmates died during spring break. It’s disturbing that I have lost more classmates than my mother has. At such a young age, I should not be losing classmates at the rate that I have.

My class was made up of approximately 378 people. From what I have been told, that is a rather large class size, but I somehow knew pretty much everyone. The entire class was never very close, but that is to be expected with so many people. Still, we all tend to hurt when we lose one of our own.

The class split up and went to different colleges and universities while some started working. I was one of the few who made the decision to come to Southern Miss, whereas most people went to Mississippi State, Ole Miss or Alabama. I purposely became very disconnected from my graduating class. Even though I distanced myself, I still like to keep up with everyone, which is why I was affected by my former classmate’s death.

One of the hardest parts is wondering if there was anything we could have done or said. We often tell ourselves that there was nothing we could have done, but is that what we say just to comfort ourselves?

We should not have to suffer through losing our classmates at such a young age when we have not had the opportunity to truly live yet.

It has been 30 years since my mom (Sorry for giving your age away, Mom) has graduated high school, and she has only lost one classmate thus far. Only one. It has not been a year since my graduation, and I have already lost two. It’s not right.

As the grieving process begins again, it is hard not to start wondering if this will happen again soon and wonder who will go next.