Mine is? a complicated and sad story.
The photograph which is my avatar (and has been since I created the account) was taken in April, 2007, and I was 16. I'm the one in the middle. It was in this month that I experienced my first significant loss: my best friend from childhood passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. He had a heart condition that nobody knew about.
The thing is, it had been a long time since my school class from then had met - several years in fact. This photograph was taken after the funeral, and it was the first time the entire class had been reunified in a very, very long time; the people from the farthest left to the second-to-farthest right were amongst those class mates, whom it had been many years since I had met them. Despite the devastating and tragic loss, it is likely I would not have seen them for many years more to come had it not been for his death.
The woman to the far right was, in fact, a hated enemy of mine during my childhood; we definitely hated each other, and that mutual distrust of one another remained after we left. The strange thing is, it was really only after the funeral that I made amends with her - to this day, we keep in contact and are close friends, and that friendship likely would never have blossomed under any other circumstances. Again, a strange sliver of light in tragic circumstances.
Some may say its inappropriate to use such a personal and meaningful photograph on a website like this, but? I feel like I need reminding sometimes, that even the most tragic of events can have a silver lining. This photograph does that, whenever I use this website.
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