"Hey Grace!" my dad said as he walked in the door. "You know what?"

"Who cares? Just shut up! Geez!" I retorted, without thinking.

My dad looked hurt. I hate the way I do that, never thinking about what I say or what effect my words will have. I make him feel like I don’t care about him. I do, though. I love him more than anything, but he will never know that because of all the hurtful things I say to him each day.

"Hey, Les," he turned to my mom, "you know who that kid was?"

"Oh man, who?"

My mom was worried, I could tell.

"One of the Fuhrmans. Nathan, I think. How old is that one, Grace?"

I swallowed hard. "Nathan?" I asked him. "Nathan’s my age," I said softly.

Nathan? He couldn’t have died.

On the first day of sixth grade, my teacher told us we had a brand new student. "He’s a big, football-player-type kid, sort of like Michael Blondin," she said. We all knew Michael was one of the meanest boys in class. "Only this kid is nice!" she joked.

The class burst into laughter as The New Boy walked into the room.

"Class, this is Nathan Fuhrman."

Nathan was big, all right. Big and strong and healthy-looking. As we all grew to know him, we realized the teacher had been right. Nathan was the nicest kid in our class. Because he left at the end of the year, I would only see Nathan one more time for the rest of my life.

And he would never see me again. Ever.

Nathan, a sophomore in high school, collapsed at wrestling practice and died before anyone could help him. Even though I didn't know Nathan well, his death still hit me hard. At first, I didn't let it sink in; I couldn't. Nathan was just normal kid. Kids are supposed to be healthy.

Old people die, though; I knew that. My grandmother Nana had died three years earlier. I had known for a while that she was going to die and that her death would come sooner than I wanted. She had been sick for years, and we had grown used to it. I had recently gotten used to seeing Nana with oxygen tubes up her nose and around her ears. I was beginning to think that she might live a long time with those tubes helping her. Just when I was getting to know her better and accept her as a friend, Nana died.

When I went to Nathan’s visitation, I thought I would be fine. I didn't think I would be upset since I didn't know him well. But when I saw him in the coffin, he didn't fit. Kids don't fit in coffins. They shouldn’t be made for kids.

So this is Nathan, I thought. My cheeks turned a bright pink to match my shirt. I was embarrassed to be crying for someone I hardly knew. There's no way . . . . Then it hit me. This could just as easily be one of my friends.

In fact, a year earlier, it had been two of my friends. Brittany and Bionca were sisters and two of my friends from church. Brittany was 14, my age, and Bionca was just a year older. I heard from the TV that three teenage girls, two sisters and a friend, had died in a car accident near Auburntown. I remember thinking of Brittany and Bionca instantly since they lived in the area.

I just paced across the kitchen. To the fridge, to the table, to the television, and back to the fridge. I ran to check the internet in the next room. "Three teenage girls killed on Auburntown Highway." Ok there’s the story. Do I really want to read it? Yeah, I do. I clicked on the title. Toombs. The last name of the sisters. Oh no, oh no, that’s it. Kimberley Bush. Well, I don’t know her. Maybe it isn’t the Toombses that I know. Then there it was. Brittany and Bionca Toombs.

After Nathan’s death a year later, I remember the way I felt that day when I realized within myself that people my age, even my friends, could die. However, the circumstances had been different. Brittany and Bionca’s deaths were just an accident.

Nathan’s death wasn’t an accident, really. The doctors found out a week afterwards that Nathan had had a heart defect that had caused his death. Even if someone had found him and gotten him to the hospital while he was still alive, Nathan would have died anyway. That was the fact that hit me hardest. As far as the coaches, his teammates, his friends, anyone knew, Nathan Fuhrman was as healthy as anyone, but then, during a practice, earlier in which he had seemed perfectly fine, he was as dead as anyone.

This was the hardest part for me to grasp. When I saw Nathan in the coffin that day at his visitation, and I saw that boy whom I knew was my age, lying there dead; when I heard everyone saying such nice things about this boy, I really started thinking.

I would like to believe that if I were to die today, equally nice things would be said of me, however, I know this is not the case.

I am mostly mean. I am mostly cynical, mostly negative. Just like the day my dad tried to tell me that Nathan had died, when I totally cut him off. This is the way I treat people, most people, not just my dad. Although I do nice things sometimes, I don't think that, if I were to die today, I would be remembered as a nice person. And that is a truth that it has taken me a long time to realize. One I hesitate to accept because I know that it will take much longer for me to change the way people feel about me, since right now, not many people like the way I act.

I must do something about this and be careful how I act. If I don't, maybe one day, someone will remember me, not in a fond way, as I remember my friends who have died, but in a way that they feel glad that they may only see me in their memories; glad that they will never see me again in real life.