Willow's processing thread :') (tw for d3@th on hospice)

I'm just writing this post as an introduction. I am processing watching my best friend of 11 years die. I'm Willow, and I'm 17. My best friend, who was 17, passed away in January, and I'm having a hard time processing his death. He was a year older than me, and I just can't help thinking that he'd be turning 18 in June, he'd be graduating high school, and in September, he'd be starting nursing school. But that's all gone. He never got to do those things. He was terminally ill with cancer; his last few days were awful. I watched him breathing raspily, I watched as he let out whimpers of pain despite the medication he was getting hourly to make him comfortable. I held his hand as he took his final breath. I numbly watched as the hospice nurse pronounced him dead, his mother's painful sobs. I kept telling myself he was comfortable, but after I got my CNA as he encouraged me to, I saw that he really wasn't. I don't talk to anyone, I just exist, I feel so lonely, I've distanced myself from our friends because all they do is talk about him, and I just can't. I can't talk about him, talking about the good things doesn't make things any easier. I just don't even know what to do anymore, I'm burying myself in my studies, my work, and writing my novel, but I just want to feel okay again. I feel like I'm on the verge of a collapse. The pain is suffocating me and I can't breathe...