the lesson we all learn

sometimes i wonder how different my life would be if things had happened differently or if i made different choices. we all do i think that is part of human nature. but underneath it all, the things that we go through and the choices we make are what makes us the people we are. not a big lesson to learn but it's one we all learn at some point in our lives. the good and the bad is what makes us who we are. for me it comes down to this, we have to make a choice on the type of person we become. we all have our demons, we all have our hell, we all have a past. 
like i said earlier i lost my innocence when i was so young that i don't remember ever having it at all. i learned about abuse and death before i started school. but learning about death is something we all do some of us younger than others. i grew up in the country and we had animals so death wasn't all that scary for me. i learned that death is a part of life, we are born, we live our life and then we all die. i had pets that died, but who hasn't. I learned what death truly was when my grandma died. i was about 6 years old and she had a sudden stroke. it shocked the whole family and we all were sad. my parents again told me that death is just part of life and that yes it is sad but one day when we go to heaven we will see them(the person who died of course) again. in knowing that it made things much easier for me to accept.
i have never had an easy time in being around people. i didn't trust them, not really. so as a result i held myself back and away from them. i still do. i was never popular, i was always on the outside, i was always made fun of. i learned that kids were cruel and that they didn't like me. what re-enforced my mistrust of people is that when kids we nice to me, it was a set-up for them to do something to humiliate me or a way for them to find something new to make fun of me for. so if someone really was sincere in trying to be nice to me or to become my friend i didn't trust it. as a result i never had many friends, i still don't. i'm not saying i had no friends because i have had some great friends, the only thing is several of them have died. yes, i did say that i learned about death at a young age, but i learned a whole new lesson with death. the first person i remember dying was my grandma.then it was an uncle.then a close family friend from church that was like a grandpa.then it was someone else close to the family. then it really was grandpa and then grandma and then it all became a blur. then i was 16 i was pregnant and i had just come out of my own hell.(that's another story for another time) then a friend of mine was killed in a wreck. he was only 18. then i had my son maybe a month after his death. then another friends dies doing something stupid. he was only 17 and his son hadn't turned one yet. then another friend was killed in a wreck. she was 18. then a wonderful woman that worked at the school i went to was murdered in her home. then another friend was in an accident, he didn't make it either. he just turned 21 before he died and yes i loved him deeply. then my aunt died of cancer. i was eighteen when she died. and yes that many people in just a little bit over a year. so yeah for awhile death became this horrible, awful, evil thing. death wasn't supposed to happen that way to people that were so young. death wasn't supposed to be that brutal. it was supposed to happen when you were old and had lived your life, loved, gotten married, raised a family. but the bottom line is death comes for us all. it doesn't matter what you have or haven't done when it's your time it's your time. it can be when you are young and vibrant or it can be in your bed in your sleep when your 100 years old. death stayed away for awhile other than what was to be expected of people that you knew you whole life and had grown old and ill. then when i was 24 death came again and this time it was for my best-friend. he was only 25. he had a wreck just a few yards from his turn-in to his apartment. then about a year later another great friend had a wreck. he was 27 and he was buried the day i had my daughter. i didn't find out until after i had her that he died. his sister was a great friend of mine and she knew i was nearly due so she waited until after she was born. that is the mark of a friend to me because she knew how upset i would be and she cared enough to make sure my child stayed safe. then a little over a year later a good friends father died of cancer. he was also the dad of my friend that had just recently passed. this is what i now know about death, it's never easy and it hurts deeply. does the pain go away like you hear everyone say? no the pain never goes away, it is always there, but one day......one day when you think of them you will smile and enjoy the memories, it still hurts and you still miss them....but the memories is what brings peace and comfort and it's the memories that make you smile.