In Remembrance of Yaya Aly

It’s been twelve years, and I still remember the day like it was yesterday. I was coming out late for lunch, due to a math quiz I had to make up for missing. As I walked out the double doors to the court yard, I saw that none of my friends were to be found. My cousin comes up to me and tells me to go to the office. I ask her why, but she tells me that she doesn’t know, and that all she knows was that everyone was there, and she saw some of them crying. I run back into the building, run up to the second floor towards the main office. No one is there. I run down the hall to go to the other side, thinking, “Damn, she meant the attendance office.” As I’m running, I see my friend Erick walk pass me crying. I tried to stop him to ask what was wrong, but he just ignored me. I keep running to the attendance office more worried. As I turn the corner, I see all my friends standing outside: hugging, holding each other in comfort, and crying. “What’s going on?” is all that I can think of. I make my way toward them. I looked confused. Neil comes up to me, “Jillian, I have to tell you something.” I yell out, “What’s going on? Why is everyone crying?” “Yaya passed away this morning.” (I feel blank.) Tears start streaming down my cheeks. My legs felt like they were going to give. In fact, they did. You know those people in the movies where they find out that a loved one has just recently died, and they just fall and lose it all together, and everyone is trying to help them up? Well that was me. I just lost it. I kept crying and crying. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t think. I totally forgot that it was lunch time and that I was hungry. Yaya was gone. I’d never see him again.

Yaya and I have been friends since we were in the 1st grade. We were friends throughout elementary school; we lost contact in middle school; in high school, it was like we never went to different schools. That’s how much of a good friend he was. He wasn’t one of those people where I had to reintroduce myself to him all over again. He was the same boy I played kickball and four square with every day. Except this time, we were teenagers in high school, and did nothing but sit around and talk with our friends. One of my funniest memories with Yaya was when we were making fun of our friend Neil. LOL Neil was trying to trick Yaya into saying that he went to elementary school with us. So after catching Neil wink at me. I decided to go along with him. I said, “Yeah he went to Paul Revere with us. Except you probably didn’t see him because he was on the other side of the building from our classes.” Yaya burst out laughing. Neil looked confused and asked what was funny. Yaya’s response, “Dude she just called you retarded!” Hahahaha! (For those who didn’t go to Paul Revere Elementary School, they had classes for students who were slow learners, and their classes were usually separate from the regular classes.)

If there was one thing from Yaya’s passing that I learned, that would be always take the time to say “hello”, “good-bye”, or even “I love you” to your friends and family. I strongly believe in that now, because I made a mistake of not doing so with Yaya. The Friday before he passed, I was in a rush to get home, because I wanted to get ready for the Lowell Homecoming Dance. Usually when I get out of class, he would be the first person out in the court yard. He would usually be sitting under the same tree where all of our friends would meet and say good-bye. He was always the first one to give me a big hug good-bye. I didn’t see him that day. I also didn’t stop to wait. I said to myself, “I’ll see him on Monday.” I didn’t see him that following Monday. Yaya, I’m sorry. I should have stayed.

So it’s 12 years later. He passed on September 22, 1997. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. You don’t just forget a childhood friend like Yaya Aly. Yaya, I apologize that I haven’t come around to visit you, but please know I think about you every day, and you will forever be in my heart. I love you.