One of my closest friends from elementry school and high school shot and killed one of his family members over a silly argument. This happened our senior year of high school around christmas break. My buddy was always the most charming and funny guy in school but would fight if anybody ever disrespected him. He has always had a temper and poor impulse control.

I remember finding out the next day and wasn't really shocked but more felt hopeless, depressed. I was also selfishly concerned about what this meant for his family as well as his future. We were all applying to colleges and getting ready to begin this next chapter of our lives. He was a track star who had the potential to run track at the University level and get a scholarship and eventually a good career. He ended serving 5 years in prison but before hand there was about a two year window while he went to court and had sentencing. While waiting he'd come up to my University and just hang out with all my new friends that I'd met freshman year. He'd come to parties, spend the night in my dorm and just really became a fixture amongst my friends. We never discussed the shooting amongst other people but occasionally we'd run into a few people that knew us from high school that had heard stories about him.

After some time the community I came from embraced my friend and supported him, treating him even like a celebrity of sorts. Then there was this other side where he'd come to hang out with me on campus and he'd be embraced for being again extremely charming and fun.

Then he went off to prison and I can say I wasn't a good friend to him. I rarely wrote to him and rarely talked to him on the phone. I could have been a better friend but I was a selfish kid who couldn't really understand how isolating his experience must have been. When we did talk on the phone he'd tell me about how his first couple weeks were really hard. He got in a fight with a guy who was way bigger than him and beat his ass just to prove a point. All the behavior that got him in prison is the very reason he was able to thrive there.

After getting out he really struggled to get steady work which is common but he reconnected with most of the old group of friends. We're now connected through social media and we talk every now and then but we don't have a lot in common these days. I can say the biggest impact it had on me was that it just helped me realize how very quickly your life can be taken or changed permanently.