Valentines Day is a happy day. It is all about love and you know just happiness. Last year on Valentine’s Day, the meaning changed. It changed for everyone who knew Elizabeth Atwood. I remember waking up that day and it was normal. I heard my mom crying and I immediately thought something was wrong with my brother. My dad came upstairs and Alyssa came out of her room and he told us he had to tell us something. He said, “Elizabeth Atwood was killed in a car accident.” I didn’t cry. I didn’t speak. I was frozen solid. There was this honest shock running through my body. Still to this day I can feel that exact same feeling. He started telling me how we found out and where she was and all the details. The worst part of that morning was when my dad told Ashley, her first real friend at UHA and Cheercats was Liz. He told her and I can still hear my sister’s scream when I think about it. That day and the months following were the worst. I remember when I felt all out of tears all I had to do was get on facebook and read just about everyone’s statuses and go to her wall and read posts and the tears would flood my eyes. I look back now and realize that is the first time my heart has ever been truly broken. My papaw had died a few months before and Lane Ann Miller died in April but those deaths did not amount to the sorrow I felt for Atwood. Theirs was expected, hers was unexpected.
Psalm 90:12- “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Earlier this year we were in biology when I started thinking about Atwood. I was looking at the picture on the back of my binder and it had Atwood in it. That day was February 13 two years ago. We had a sleepover at the gym to celebrate a first place we had gotten at a competition. The next morning when we woke up was normal, everyone was fine. We had no clue that one year exactly, Atwood would be gone. Even last year on February 13 we had not the slightest idea that tomorrow would not be another happy Valentines Day, but it would be one of the worst days that we would face. I think about her and I am reminded that our days are numbered. We have no guarantee. We say that all the time but yet we still say, “Oh Ill wait till tomorrow to do that or to fix my relationship with God or to start reading tomorrow.” We may not have tomorrow. The reality is, this day could literally be our last and there is nothing we can do about it. We as Christians say that it will be okay when we die because we’re going to heaven and that’s true. But, that doesn’t give us an excuse to just be lazy and let someone else get up and do it for us. It is our job.
We say that we wanna make a difference in this school and in our lives and in the lives of others, but we keep waiting for someone else to get up and start it for us. If we keep living our lives thinking like that, then one day it will be too late.
So in the words of Elizabeth Atwood, “One day your life will flash before your eyes, make sure it’s worth watching.”
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