My heart has been shattered into a million pieces. My soul is broken. My body feels like an empty shell.

The night before yesterday I received the most dreaded message ever. “Sofie, G has gone to heaven. Promise you’ll never forget him.”

My best friend is no longer here and it seems like the world stopped with his final breath. The weeks leading up to his death I was clinging to a meager hope that he would pull through after a most horrific accident. In the end, he did not. Young, healthy and full of hopes and dreams for the future he passed away after 27 short years in this world. It seems the cruelest and most meaningless thing to ever happen to anybody. I have to constantly remind myself that real life does not promise any happy endings, and no one promised us a life without hardship and battles.

G and I were so much more than friends. We were soulmates, kindred spirits, partners, – simply best friends, and despite our differences in culture, age and gender we always just got one another. We were each other’s port in the storm, each other’s trusted confidant, and essential beings in each other’s lives.

On days of important events like exams and job interviews, we would always send each other messages of cheer and support. Even just on random Mondays, we would send cute messages wishing the other a good start to the week. Or sometimes simply wishing each other a good lunch break. Some periods we would hang out several days a week, others maybe only once a month, but the conversation between us never stopped.

We always had plenty of things to talk about, and we had so many plans for the future. Careers, our personal lives, our dreams, hopes, and challenges. A future that for him never came to be, and for me will now look very different. While educated in different fields we had a shared interest in philosophy (among many things) and my favorite quote from philosopher Søren Kierkegaard never seemed more to the point than it does today:

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.”

We had so many plans for the future, both the near future and much further down the line. There was so much we dreamed about doing together, experience together, places we wanted to visit together. There were so many more beers to drink, songs to sing, and even arguments to have.

Never in a million years had I thought that when I hugged him goodbye less than four weeks ago it would be for the last time. Heck, we were supposed to meet the following week.

That night of our last meeting, as per usual, he walked me all the way into the subway until I had to check in with my card and stood there waving his hand at me until I was down the stairs. It never dawned on me that I would never see him again. Never hear his soft voice again or see his dark eyes sparkle with joy and excitement again. He had the most adorable uncontrollable way of laughing with his entire body, where he would almost bend over while sitting down and clap his hands together. Sometimes I would be the unwilling object of that laughter, other times it would be something I said as a joke that would have him close to rolling on the floor.

We had a ton of inside jokes and secrets known only to him and me. We had coffee shops, restaurants, and bars that we would refer to as ‘ours’. We had our own traditions, days that we celebrated, our own cute ways of surprising each other. After once having mentioned that I really liked musicals but rarely went, he spontaneously presented me with two tickets to a musical the following week.

He was so much more than a friend. We had a connection so rare that no existing word seems adequate for describing it. He was truly one of a kind and by losing him, I have lost a precious part of myself that I may never recover.

I’m struggling to pull through the meaninglessness of it all, and I spend so much time crying desperately hoping to somehow wake from this nightmare. I’m surrounded by loving and understanding people, but my grief is my own.

Grief is love that you no longer know where to send, love that feels trapped in your heart and weighs on your chest as if a giant rock was placed on it. I’m grieving for the loss of my soulmate, the loss of our future and dreams, the meaningless loss of a young man’s life, and the loss of a part of myself.

Whenever I faced a challenge he would always tell me “Don’t worry – you can do it! I believe in you and I’m proud of you.” Right now I’m facing the toughest challenge of my life and I have to honor him by showing that I can get through this. I will. But it may take some time.

My only regret is that we didn’t get to spend more time together, so remember to care for your loved ones and make time for them while you have them in your life. And always remember to love!