I knew Lauren for an absurdly short amount of time to lay claim to mourning her.

We met when I was still in high school, and for a while, I only knew her as my friend’s girlfriend. The first time I met her, she wore a stripy shirt and Toms, had hair down to her waist and smelled faintly of citrusy cologne. I remember thinking, ‘this girl is a living, breathing Pinterest board’.

I came to know her over a few months, and eventually we became friends over a shared love - books. Frequent trips to Amsterdam’s American Book Center and Starbucks for caramel macchiatos. She had a book review blog and a YouTube series, ‘Document Your Life’ - after the second time we met, I looked them up and devoured everything on them. Most of what we’d talk about was books, music and sometimes new anime that we had watched.

Sometimes, we talked about deeper things. Once I asked her about a silver Seiko watch she always wore, and that was the first time she told me about her brother, and how she had lost him a few years prior to osteosarcoma. Turns out, the cologne was also his. She told me that they were her ways of keeping him with her, and in her next breath, she recommended ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ - another book I devoured immediately, and the first book I ever cried reading.

I recommended books to her too. When the Shatter Me series came out, I gushed about it for days, and I was so happy when she started reading it. She was a relentless annotator - as someone who’s afraid to even crack the spine on a book, this was a habit of hers that made me cringe at the time, but that I’m starting to understand now.

I collected the music she told me about all in one place - a random assortment of Joshua Hyslop, Sufjan Stephens and ‘Comptine d’un autre été’, a playlist I’m listening to as I write this.

To quote one of the Young Adult books she turned me onto, she was ‘all the colors at once, at full brightness’. God, she loved color. In sharp contrast to my own style, I don’t remember her ever wearing a shred of black - it was always bright yellow, or bright blue, bright orange. I don’t remember her even owning anything that wasn’t colorful.

Lauren was so many more things. She was a climber. She was a videographer and photographer, and a rather talented one at that. She charged to film ads at one point, and I remember not even being surprised - they were fantastic. There was absolutely nothing in the world she wouldn’t try. Of all the people I’ve ever known, she grabbed every second of life and devoured it whole.

Eventually, as it always does with teenagers, a bunch of teenage bullshit got in the way. Her and my friend split. Priorities diverged. At one point, she said I reminded her too much of him - something I had no control over, but that still hurt the same. We ‘got busy’. I don’t even remember the last time we saw each other.

I always kept up with her blog posts, was always on the brink of reaching out. We tried to stay in touch a few times. When I finished a new book, I’d send her a message or two with my thoughts. She’d occasionally reply, and let me know she was doing a new challenge, or publishing 100 Happy Days on her Instagram page and that I should give it a try too. What can I say? Sometimes two lines run parallel to each other and never meet. Sometimes they intersect for a brief period in space and time, and then never meet again, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t matter.

I spent the rest of Lauren’s life on the sidelines, or the peripheries. From afar, I watched as the weight of everything landed squarely on her shoulders. The reality of losing her brother sinking in. ARFID. Asexuality. ADHD. Autism. And, perhaps the most debilitating, her Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

When her blogs mentioned euthanasia for the first time, I stopped reading - something I don’t know whether to be ashamed of or not. Death and loss have always been a deep-seated fear of mine - an eternal threat hanging over the heads of everyone and everything I hold dear. So I chose denial.

By chance, I saw one blog post, where she mentioned the date had been set for late January of this year. I struggled for weeks, trying to find the willpower to call, not wanting to face the conversation, not knowing how to tell her anything I’ve told you. I didn’t know what to say - how do you start a conversation like that?

‘So, I know you’re planning on dying soon, and I know we haven’t spoken in years, but I miss the way you used to organize your bookshelf and hang twinkly lights on everything?’.

Now, something to be ashamed of. Eventually, I got my shit together. Too late. Way, way too damn late.

I messaged Lauren on January 27, at 9:38 AM.

She passed away peacefully at home on January 27, at 13:55 PM.

And all I said was ‘Hey’.

Goddammit, I thought she would reply. I thought she was ghosting me. I thought maybe she didn’t even remember me, so I let it go. Until I checked her blog and saw the serif words ‘In Memoriam’ printed across it, and my stomach hit the bottom of the earth.

In her last blog post, Lauren called the ability to admit to a mistake a beautiful quality. In my last therapy session, my therapist told me to find a way to remember her - what better way to do that than a public admission of my own mistake?

I should’ve called. Should’ve texted. Should’ve said something, when there was still time.

Maybe the lesson Lauren was always supposed to teach me was how to admit to my mistakes, and how to do what I want to do now instead of waiting to get my shit together. Maybe tomorrow isn’t always the best time.

Hug the people you love, today. Text the person you want to text. Be creative. Try something new, even if it’s terrifying.

Live like Lauren did, wholly and fully. Grab everything out of life that you can, in all of its beauty, color and brightness. And pick up a new book every once in a while.

All my love and thoughts go out to Lauren’s parents, friends and everyone who ever had the absolute pleasure of knowing her, no matter how briefly.

Read Lauren’s last blog post here. I encourage everyone to read about her, explore the blog and especially the 'information' page, where you can find links to all kinds of articles, videos/films, and books about ME and/or euthanasia.

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