I had just seen the most horrifying thing I had ever witnessed, no it wasn’t a murder or a rape, it was something much worse. It was however centered around a death.

Sometimes I get these strange ideas in my head, I think of things I haven’t thought about in years. Something that should have no importance in life and yet it is brought up.

Margo died when I was eleven. I did not know Margo that well, I had seen her around campus here and there. I never hung out with her sister Grace outside of school even though we were friends. Funny enough my Mother seemed closer to their family then I was.

My mother was often caught in the mornings exchanging a few words with her father as he held their youngest in his arms. I never seemed to see the mother around but my mother seemed to.

Grace and I had been on the soccer team together, we would share a few laughs and we both had a mutual best friend. Babette lit up both of our worlds, she never pushed us to be friend really, and we were more of acquaintances until her sister died.

Funny thing is though; if I called up Grace now after so many years I don’t she would remember me. I haven’t spoken to her in so long. After she returned to Seattle we parted ways, we stayed in touch on Facebook for a while and then I guess things just died out.

If Grace ever read this she would probably think I’m crazy and have to rack her brain to figure out who I was and even more confusing to her would most likely be the reason I’m even writing this. I wish I had a reason, the fact of the matter is, and as random as it seems, Margo just popped up on my mind a while ago.

Grace and Margo had gone home back to Seattle for the summer with the rest of their family. We didn’t really keep in touch over the summer, I never really kept in touch with anyone over the summers, and everyone was back home visiting or traveling the world and too busy to keep in touch.
Now I can’t remember who told me about. I can’t remember if it was my mom or Babette that had told me that Margo died. One thing I did know was that Liz, Babette’s older sister was best friends with Margo. She was heart broken after she died. I think that class was a total of 12 students so everyone was heartbroken.
The day everyone found out that Margo had died, everyone in town ust so happened to be getting together for a back to school party at one girl’s house. Liz of course was attending. The girls all got the call and shared it with one another, in just a few minutes a happy get together had turned into nothing more than a puddle tears.
Word got around school pretty fast that Margo was dead. The school was as small as could be, people kept saying that she was too young, when in fact she really was too young, she died two days before her fifteenth birthday. She had already bought the dress for the party that her parents were throwing her.

The real question around school was how it all really happened. When school started again there was nothing but buzz around that grade along with a whole lot of grief. Babette tried to call Grace to find out what had happened. It wasn’t really something that Babette and I talked about, it was pretty grim.

No one was sure if Margo’s family would return to school or stay out in Seattle where family could comfort them, they themselves didn’t know what they would do.

Babette told me what she had been told happened. Margo and Grace were playing outside one what was supposed to be one of the most beautiful days they had seen in Seattle. The girls ran out onto the large lot her parents had and played on the tire swing just as they always had. This time the branch holding up the swing broke though. The branch snapped Margo’s neck on the way down and she was killed instantly. Grace however was just knocked unconscious. The way I was told the story was that the little sister, I think she was about eight at the time, came out to play with them and found them both there. When Grace awoke in the hospital her sister was gone.

On the first day of school there was a new addition to our high school campus. A bench painted pink with a golden rectangular face that read “In loving memory of Margo”. Through every crack of the bench flowers were placed and those flowers sat there for weeks.
I remember years after her accident sitting on that bench. Not even a thought of her in head.

After I found out that Margo had died I tried to imagine her face, think of words to describe her, I knew her only in the words of others. I wondered if I had ever spoken to her and just forgotten but I could never remember.

About a week after school started again her family held a wake for her at school. Almost all the high schoolers attended and the whole school was filled with overwhelming grief. It was the first time in the history the school that a student had died like that. My mother did not want me to attend the wake however she did go to express her condolences.

The family made the announcement that they would in fact not be returning to school and that they would permanently move back to Seattle. My mother told me that when she talked to the father he said that al they wanted to do was move on and forget it ever happened.
That made perfect sense to me at the time. All I would ever want to do is move on from that situation and never look back, it would be much too painful.

The next summer Grace came back and spent a few weeks living with Babette. I was often over there and we grew much closer that summer. It had been almost a year since her sister died and it seemed as if though nothing had ever happened. Not once did I ask Grace about her sister and not once did she talk about her. She was a normal teenager at that moment.
When she went back home we stayed in touch briefly but eventually lost contact. I’ve thought about her here and there but lately I’ve been thinking about Margo. These last few days I’ve just been thinking about how fragile life really is. Though Margo and I were never close she is the only young person I’ve ever known that has died.

So now I sit here at two A.M. with wild thoughts of her filling my head. I can do nothing but google her. I just wanted to see what she looks like, I couldn’t remember. I can barely remember what Grace looks like. I search for Grace on Facebook but she no longer has an account. I did however find both of her parents. Neither has a page in memory of Margo or even any picture of her on there. When I google her the only thing I could find was her obituary, and once again no photos.

That is the terrible thing I have witnessed. A person that has completely faded. Literally a ghost. I just wonder what she looks like, as if I could see her face all my worries would be mended. She would no longer be a distant memory but rather a person that I knew.

I witnessed my biggest fear; that one day, I too will fade