A Lesson Learned From A Fallen Friend

Today I found out that a friend of mine passed away. And the best thing I can do for myself right now, is learn something from her. In order to see what I learned, I'm going to give you a peek into the history of our friendship, so you can really understand...
I first saw her standing outside of Ms. B's english class my freshman year of high school. Now, I went to a very small high school, everyone knew eachother, the second I looked at her I knew that she was new to the school. I later found out that her name was Gabriella King. We sat at lunch that day, and from then on it was history. All the way up through senior year we grew to be inseperable. And then, as with any friendship between girls, a boy happened. It was my fault, I'll give her that much, we aruged it to the point where we even wanted to fight eachother. Well more like she wanted to fight me because lets face it, Gabby was one tough chick. Time passed and the drama faded as did our friendship. On new years eve of 2007, about 7 months later than I should have, I sent Gabby a message apologizing, pouring my heart out, and being honest about the entire situation. Being the graceful, forgiving and loving person that she is, she accepted my apology but mentioned that she cannot accept my friendship back... Which I understood. As time passed her and I would occasionally contact eachother and even mention meeting up and catching up. Then, this past summer I ran into her at a party, terrified of what might happen I froze as she made her way over to me and hugged me... This was the last I had seen Gabby. We had spoken about meeting up after that but never gotten to it. I guess that leads us up to today and what I learned...
Today, St. Patricks Day, March 17th 2009, Gabriella King passed away... And with her passing she leaves me with this. Life really is too short to be burning bridges, because reconstruction may not always be too late... but I guess sometimes theres not always enough time to finish the job. So when you fight with a parent, a sibling, a lover, a friend etc. Think about it... the next day you may be speaking, but will your connection be the same ever again? An apology is easy, but actually fixing things takes time... Time we don't always have... R.I.P Gabby... You will be greatly missed. Thank you for teaching me this, even though I had to learn the hard way. I love you.