Dear Christopher Chandler,

It is hard to even know where to begin. Should I start by talking about how we met so many years ago, about how the distance between us grew until it was unreachable, or about how you were taken from everyone that loved you?

In eighth grade I was a terribly shy girl. I didn’t have many (any) friends, I flew under the radar, and I was miserable. When you’re in middle school the only thing that matters is whether you have friends or not. I was practically a leper; no one would talk to me. That all changed in science class when you wanted to sit next to me, when you talked to me, when you changed my life. I know that it started because you thought I was smart and because you wanted someone to do your work for you but as we changed projects and changed seats and moved around the classroom, we became friends. And you, you were so popular, so outgoing, everyone loved you. When you became my friend people started talking to me. I wasn’t a social outcast. Over the course of the year I developed social skills and friends who I cherish still, to this day. I don’t think you knew what you were doing, or ever realized how you had changed my life.

When we got to high school things changed. We were still close freshman and sophomore years but we ran with different people. By junior year we didn’t have any classes together as I was in honors courses. I would see you across the campus and smile but we had different friend groups and didn’t have anything in common by that point. I missed you. You could always make me laugh. You were never afraid to be yourself. You had this self confidence and charisma that could put anyone at ease.

I hate to say that I don’t even know when you moved to Washington. After high school I went out to college on the east coast, it was so hard for me. I turned back into that lost, scared girl that didn’t have any friends, except this time you weren’t there to save me. A few days before Halloween I got a phone call, it was 2 or 3 in the morning and I had been asleep and didn’t really know what was going on when I answered. I don’t even remember who it was that told me. All I knew was that you were dead and that my heart was broken.

I still remember sitting in the hallway of my dorm, staring at the wall for hours, incapable of believing that someone who brought people so much joy could have their light snuffed out in a senseless act of violence. It did make sense that you were shot while trying to help out a friend – while trying to get them home safely. That was just who you were. I printed out every article I could find, every picture they had with them. I felt like I had nothing left of you. I just wanted something.

At this point I was drowning. It was the middle of my first semester of college, I was on the other side of the country from everyone that I knew and loved, I had lost someone that I had always considered one of my best friends, and I was a perfectionist doing badly in my classes because everything kept piling on top of me. I was suffocating. One day, while I was trying to collect more of you, I started thinking back on how we had met, how we became friends. It was then that I realized how much I must have been letting you down. Here I was, having regressed back to the person that I was before I met you. I made the decision then that I needed to change, to stop being so scared of life. I finally came up for air.

It took some time. It has been two and a half years now but I can safely say that I have become someone much like the person you were. I am outgoing and friendly, I’m not afraid of whether other people will like me. I will always look out for my friends and I always stand up for the person that doesn’t have anyone else. I know how important it is because I was that person once. I know, deep down, that if I had never met you I would have ended my life long before I ever had the chance to get to this point. Everyone deserves this chance.

I guess what this whole letter is trying to say is thank you. Thank you for saving me. Twice.

I miss you every time I laugh,

B, age 20