I never could cry at funerals ever since I was little I thought it had to do with the fact that maybe it was because I didn't understand death itself.that was the truth until January 20th, 2018. When I was little I thought pain had to be a physical feeling, like when you scrape your knee, but my life changed forever the day I finally understood . what raw, emotional pain felt like. On January 20th, I went sledding with my youth group. While on an air tube, I flew off of it and hit my head, which resulted in me going to the hospital where me and my mother spent the next 4 hours waiting to see a doctor. The doctor didn't do much, he just told my mom to wake me up every 2 hours to check how I'm doing, and if my symptoms worsened to bring me back, so we went home. My mom began the wake ups, now I don't quite remember what time it was when she told me the most heartbreaking news.I remember was being angry that I had been woken up. She then comes over to my bed and sits down. She says “Ash Lascell had committed suicide.” I broke down in her arms, sobbing. It felt like like I had been punched in the stomach.I said. That he couldn't be dead. it made no sense to me, but what hurt me the most was remembering our last talk. Ash had been trying to sleep with me and I told him no. We then got into a huge fight, I told him I hated him, and that never wanted to talk to him again. Knowing that those were my final words to him broke me.I didn't go to school the next day, I spent most of it feeling the pain of his absence from my life, which was now a permanent thing. My friend had killed himself. not being able to handle the pain I shut down. His funeral was 3 days later. I never cried at funerals until that day. I was sobbing. They had an open casket, and seeing him just laying there broke my heart He was blue and his lips were purple. He didn't have the smile that I had grown accustomed to as we grew up, but rather his face had a blank expression. seeing his body still confirmed one of my worst fears Losing someone to suicide was one of the hardest things I've ever gone through in my life, because there was no one to blame. How could I blame Ash for committing suicide? How could I hate him after his death? So I blamed myself. I felt like my last words to him were the ones to blame. If I hadn't told him that I hated him, then maybe he would still be here. If I had hadn't said that then maybe he wouldn't have killed himself. When you place the blame on yourself for the loss of someone it can destroy you, or you can destroy yourself. The guilt I carried never left. The pain never went away. It's hard to get over the pain of losing someone. It feels almost as if part of you is missing. You try to ignore it, but it doesn't go away, just because you refuse to acknowledge it. It just grows and eats away at you until you pay attention to it. I tried to ignore it, to push it away, but all that happened was that I pushed those closest to me away. I isolated myself from the people who could help me. I thought I could get through it myself, but I couldn't. I began to drown in the pool of despair that I had filled for myself. My final words to him haunt me everyday. I tried not to tell others in fear of judgement, but eventually the pain grows too big and you can't contain it anymore. The darkness that caused you to have nightmares and cry behind closed doors takes over, and you no longer feel like yourself. But you feel numb, like you've cried all the tears you could. And then one day, you finally gather enough courage to talk about it, and the tears you held back come rushing to the surface. Emotions you never felt invade your heart, then you start feel a little bit of relief. The ache in your heart that you thought would never go away finally starts to hurt a little less, and you no longer feel guilty about smiling. You stop feeling bad about living and you start to breathe a little easier. You start to hurt a lot less, but the pain and loss you felt is still there, but it doesn't hurt as bad anymore. It starts feeling like a dull ache, because those horrible memories that haunt you, soon turn to happy ones as you remember the good about them. even though they are no longer there in your life physically, you know that they'll always be in your heart. The memories fill the void that they left in you.I had spent almost 16 years of my life never crying at funerals. I spent almost 16 years of my life never feeling the pain that he had caused, but when he died, I thought part of me had died too. Instead It taught me that I could cry at funerals, because loss is something we will all experience, but once you lose someone you can either grow into something better, something they would be proud of or you can lose yourself to the pain .At 16 years old, I've lost 5 people to suicide . Ash's funeral was the only one I ever cried at.Dear Ash you left this world to soon and may we meet again