Lauren DeStefano once said, "I know she isn't coming back, but I still think that she will. Nothing can make that go away. We figure out what death means when we're born, practically, and we live our whole lives in some kind of weird denial about it." In a sense, this is true. I know that she isn't coming back, but I don't think she will. Sure, I keep expecting to see her sitting in her seat in the back of the classroom, looking out the window and trying her hardest not to be noticed; or even gently pushing herself back and forth on the swing sets at the park across the street. Yet, despite what I expect, she's not there; she's never there.
Also, we don't figure out what death means when we're born; yet, we do live in denial of it when it's meaning finally sinks in. Death will take us all in one way or another. Since she's gone now, I keep repeating in my mind what she told me once, "the only way to truly know about what's waiting for us after death, is to die." I, myself, was raised in church, though I never really was a religious person. I was a good boy and attended church every Sunday. But, she... She always was asking questions; she wanted to know the whys about everything. In Looking for Alaska, John Green said, "The afterlife mattered to me. Heaven and hell and reincarnation. As much as I wanted to know how Alaska had died, I wanted to know where she was now, if anywhere."
That's what I want to know, where she is, and if I will be able to see her again once I meet my untimely end.
