Losing Liv: The Greatest Challenge I Ever Overcame

This post is dedicated to my best friend Olivia. Today would have been her 19th birthday.

To my best friend forever, happy 19th birthday. Today we would have raised a glass together in celebration of you finally being the legal drinking age. Instead, myself, your family, and your closest friends will spend today grieving and sharing our favourite memories of you.

Even though you aren’t here, you still manage to shine brighter than any light I’ve ever seen. I feel you in the morning sun, the evening sunsets, and especially in the stars at night. I will never stop searching for you in the sky. I hope you know that you touched the lives of every single person you met, and your memory continues to live within all of us.

You were and always will be my sunshine. I hope you’re in paradise.

I love you forever, my sweet angel. This one's for you.

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"What is the greatest challenge you ever overcame and what did you learn from it?"

This is a job application or an interview question that we have all likely encountered at some point or another in our lives. For me, I typically go back and forth between deciding to craft a truthful answer or one that I think the employer would want to hear. I recently had to answer this question on an application and I decided to be completely honest about this one. Little did I know that I was about to create one of the most authentic pieces of writing that would bring myself and others to tears upon reading. Today I will share the answer to this question with all of you.

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"Olivia (Liv) and I were best friends since kindergarten. She was the closest I could ever get to the sun. She lit up every room she walked into and I am convinced she was sunshine in human form. My therapist said it best: “People spend their entire life longing for a friendship like yours and Olivia’s. Some never find it. But you found it, you had it! You were lucky enough to have what people may spend a lifetime never experiencing. And you lost it.” I was completely devastated when Olivia’s mom shared the news about the accident. Olivia’s life was taken by an impaired driver on June 7th, 2020. To answer the question, the biggest challenge I ever had to overcome was losing my best friend at just 17 years old.

This challenge has been unlike any other. I continue to grieve my best friend over a year later, though I have grown tremendously and have learned so much throughout the process. I think the most important thing I've learned is that you cannot take a single second for granted. Life is precious and unpredictable; to be alive is a gift, which is why I make sure to tell my people that I love them. I make sure to spend plenty of time with my family and tell my friends that I am proud of them. I make sure that everything I do is done with love. I make sure to begin and end each day with gratitude. I make sure to smile at strangers, randomly compliment others, take pictures of beautiful things, and say good morning to the sun and good night to the moon. I make sure to live every day like it’s my last because I refuse to waste a second of this life. Grief looks different for everyone and as part of the healing process, I accepted that my grief may not look like everyone else’s.

Before losing Liv, I used to think that home was a place but no, home was always her. Home was hearing her laugh, listening to her speak, and seeing her smile. Home was the feeling of hugging her and having her light transfer onto me. From therapy, I learned that home isn’t always a place, sometimes it’s a person. For me, my home was Olivia. I hope to one day find my way back home."

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The job I applied to with this response never viewed my application. I wanted this job so badly, considering I put hours into crafting the perfect answers. I'd like to believe that getting this job wasn't meant to be, but instead, it was meant to give me the push I so desperately needed to start this blog. I was so upset that my hard work had gone to waste, and I realized that I needed a platform to share my writing. Consequently, The Sunshine Project was born.

I hope Olivia is proud of my writing and the person I am today.

The picture attached at the beginning of this post was taken of Olivia and me at one of my spoken word poetry performances. In high school, I began writing about my mental health as a coping mechanism. My first piece, titled 'Rooted in Sadness, Blooming with Love,' was performed at my high school's annual talent night.

Olivia was incredibly supportive of my writing journey. She would give me a pep talk the night before a performance, be in the crowd the night of, and was there to congratulate me after with her warm smile and kind words.

My writing came to a halt when I lost Liv, and throughout my entire first year of university, I barely wrote at all. With my brain fogged by trauma, words either came slowly or not at all. Not to mention, I was afraid to write because the honesty made my loss feel all too real, and I was far from ready to accept it. What once provided me with so much comfort and joy was now a painful ordeal.

I'm happy to be writing again. This is my passion.

I take solace in my writing, and I hope you find as much comfort and warmth within my words as I do.

With love and light,

Gabby