The difference a decade makes

Nov 21, 2016 by Christina R.

10 years is a long time.

You can change a lot in a decade. Thinking back to my 16-year-old self is a slightly unnerving exercise. At 16, I was unsure, insecure, and in a constant state of confusion as to what my life should be like. Truthfully, that part hasn’t changed. At 16, I was sure that I wanted to be a psychologist, someone trained to help people deal with the uphill climb that was depression, something that I struggled with at the time. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I stuck with that path. Where would I be now? Would I be closer to my idea of being a “real” adult than I am now? Until someone invents a Time Turner, I guess I’ll never really know.

10 years ago, my life was irrevocably changed.

I was in tenth grade at this private school downtown that, in hindsight, I really had no business attending. Most of the families were upper-middle class and while my parents were firmly middle-class, they insisted that I go to this school and assured me that they could handle the financial responsibilities that came with it. It was a point of pride for them and it quickly became one for me. This, combined with my suburban upbringing, meant I lived a fairly sheltered life up until that point. Not to say that my family hadn’t experienced hardship — that’s a given for any immigrant family — but I was largely shielded from any of the harsh realities that we faced.

I had never known real loss.

I remember this one part of that day more than anything else. It was the end of the school day and I remember leaving campus earlier than normal. I remember being unusually efficient with my post-class locker routine and walking with two friends who always left school as soon as the bell rung in order to beat the rush to the subway. But halfway into that walk to Summerhill station, I stopped, apologized to my companions, and said something about having to head back to school. I can’t remember what sent me back that day, but I know it wasn’t important. I wasn’t going back to retrieve anything, I just wanted to hang around campus a little longer to talk to a few people. I lived in the next city over, far away from everyone else, and hanging out after school was really the only chance I got to socialize. I wandered around without any real purpose, hoping to bump into someone before heading home. I remember seeing a few girls from class and asking them where one of my friends was as I hadn’t seen or heard from him all day, which was unusual — he was one of those chatty types who would ALWAYS check in. I walked back upstairs to try to track him down, but no luck, so I just gave up and started the trek home. And then, on one of the landings, I ran into him. But he wasn’t his usual snarky, talkative self. He was quiet, blank even. This was someone who rarely showed any vulnerability or emotion and my mind couldn’t understand what was happening, so I started joking around and asked what was new. He just stared at me and said, “Az didn’t wake up this morning.”

A year earlier, I met this girl. Which wasn’t entirely unusual — that’s kind of what happens when you start at a new school: you meet people. The grade nine class was always kind of weird: it was an entry year, so you had the “old kids” who had been together since the fifth grade and were set in their ways, mixing with the “new kids” who had come from “regular” schools all over the city and now had the challenge of fitting in. As a new kid, I was somehow lucky enough to gain the respect of some old kids. There were a few other new kids who had done the same, but none of them was as loud or noticeable as this one girl: Azarnoosh.

You couldn’t NOT notice Az. She was this tiny Persian girl with a huge personality. She was smart, informed, witty, articulate, and gutsy as hell. There’s this one photo that sums her up perfectly: she’s facing a good friend of hers and they’re mid-debate, arguing with each other about god knows what. That was Az, always debating, but always for the greater good. No matter what you thought of her, you knew that she was going to be someone important one day. I always thought she was going to be Prime Minister.

Because we ran in similar circles, I got to know her and became her friend. She used to make fun of me for being this innocent, naive, sheltered kid. I was always in awe of her ability to say whatever she wanted and argue her way out of anything. We weren’t super close or anything, but I developed a respect for her and valued whatever time we shared.

Before we started grade ten, it became known around our class that Az wouldn’t be coming back. Our school was a Christian school and staunchly so — from morning assembly where our principal would lead the entire school in prayer to the mandatory religion classes every year, there was no escaping the religious structure. For an agnostic like Az, that wasn’t ideal. So, she transferred to her local public school. I still heard from her and about her, but she wasn’t part of my everyday life.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel this huge crushing wave of grief when I heard she had passed. Losing her wasn’t as noticeable because in some ways, she had already left. But it would trickle in, little moments and overwhelming moments where I would remember that she was gone. Moments where I would go from feeling numb to angrily yelling to the God I somehow still believed in, asking why he would take away someone with so much promise. As someone who battled with depression, I’d find myself bargaining often, begging to trade places with her. For years, I would ask why SHE had to be the one to leave. She could have done so much good. She could have changed the world. I, on the other hand, felt useless. It took me a while to reconcile that.

We lost Az about a month before her 16th birthday. Every day, week, month, and year that’s passed since then has been noticeably lacking.

Every milestone I pass, I take her with me. When I graduated high school, when I started university, when I finished university, when I started college, when I graduated college, when I started my job. Through all those moments, I’d stop and wonder what she’d be doing if she was still with us. I’d wonder what the world would be like if she was still around. I still think about that from time to time.

Az was the first person I lost. Or at least, the first person whose loss I felt. She taught me how to grieve, how to deal, how to bounce back. She taught me what strength truly meant.

But as much as I learned from her death, I learned more from the way she lived. She taught me how to question everything, that I should never settle for the answer given, and to always strive for something bigger and better. She taught me how to stand up for myself and speak out for others. She taught me to expect more, want more, be more.

And for that, I can never thank her enough.

Happy 26th, Az.