I still get sad a lot, Kathy writes to me. I know that this is partly my fault. When she called and asked if Meredith was going to be okay, I knew that in the pause that followed, she was expecting reassurance, not a broken heart. I rushed to think of the best way to put it, wondering if I should lie.

"Right now, they don't think she's going to make it," I said finally, choking on the words. She broke down crying, gasping in disbelief. She had to hang up, and I wish I could have been there to hug her, to share her grief. Now when I hear about Kathy's sad days I want to be near enough to comfort her instead of all the way across the country. In the words of Sandra Scofield speaking of her daughter, "I want to tell her I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. What you've been through, maybe it's the price of your sensibility É I did not know how to keep it from you."

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Meredith. Yesterday, October 28, 1997, would have been her 18th birthday. I think about what she would be doing if she had made it to the University of Oregon. I wonder who she would have become if given the chance. I think about how I have changed because of her death. I can never be completely free again. Death's presence weighs heavily on my mind, and tragedy is always lurking, hidden in a corner somewhere. I do not know whether I will always gag at the sight of smashed cars on the side of the road, in movies, or on TV. I hope I will not continue to worry that my friends or family members are dead when I call and nobody answers the phone. I try to find strength in the fact that while Meredith lived, she lived beautifully.

In second grade Kathy, Meredith and I were best friends. We had our own secret group named the CD club, CD stood for the cough drops that J.B., the maintenance man, used to give us. We spent most recesses hanging around our favorite tree on campus, the three of us sitting comfortably in its branches. People might have thought we were a little strange when we asked the headmaster if we could buy that tree. He was nice about it though, resisting the urge to laugh at us while explaining kindly that he could not possibly sell it to us. When we were not climbing around on our tree, we spent time writing books of stories about inanimate objects with titles such as "The Fork" and "The Kleenex Box." We made elaborate plans to sneak over to each other's houses at night.

When I found out that Meredith had been in a serious car accident and was in the hospital, I was completely unprepared to grasp the reality of her death. I had spent the weeks up to that moment worrying about packing for college and leaving behind my old life. That Saturday, two of my closest friends were to leave for Berkeley. My mother told me that Meredith was in very critical condition, but it did not occur to me that she might not recover. I assumed it would be like any other near-tragedy I had experienced. My freshmen year in high school, my friend Joanna had suffered a stroke. Her parents found her collapsed on the floor one day and took her to the hospital. The doctors were never able to find out what caused it, but she quickly recovered. I assumed Meredith's accident would not be any different. Death did not seem possible. Death was not real. Only grandparents die. Maybe someone's mother or father dies once in awhile. Maybe someone you do not really know very well gets shot or jumps off a bridge or forgets to wear her seatbelt, but that is as close as death comes.

Meredith did not forget to wear her seatbelt. The accident was not drug or alcohol related. There was no detail to blame except that they were speeding. She was sitting in the back while her boyfriend and his friend sat up front. They lost control of the car, ran into a cement wall on the side of the road, and the car flipped on its side, all in a matter of seconds. The two in the front survived, maybe because of the airbags, maybe not. Meredith slipped into a coma on the way to the hospital.

I refused to believe that Meredith could possibly die until I heard the word "brain dead." Even then I felt I must have misunderstood. I had thought that once you were brain dead there was nothing anybody could do to save you. Of course that could not be possible. For a second I found hope in the fact that brain dead was not quite the same thing as dead, and maybe they were close to finding a cure. But soon I had to realize she did not have a chance of living. Suddenly, I was thrown into positions I had not asked to be in. I had to call my friends who had not heard yet and tell them the bad news; I had to decide whether I should go to the hospital and then whether I should go in to see her, knowing that she would be bruised and swollen; I had to think of something to say to her grieving mother. I realized that the key to being an adult was not independence or leaving home; it was a clear grasp of the fact that you and everyone around you will die and that it could happen at any time.

James Carroll learned about mortality from the Vietnam war, the death of his father, and the death of his baby girl. "Ultimately, of course, it was all a lesson in mortality: My parents died, although not before my infant daughter did. And now I know, as privileged 26-year-old American men never do, that my bones too will be scorched, and the breath will leave my body forever." I learned about mortality from Meredith. I saw Meredith for the last time in July. I am glad I ran into her that day because she looked more alive than ever. She was wearing the cutoff jean shorts and Birkenstocks that I always picture her in. I could see that she was relieved to be done with high school and had already started her new life. She was happy, and I was happy for her. She was smiling and bright whereas in school she had been somehow deflated. I wished her a good summer and good luck at school in the fall. I only saw her for a second.

At first I did not want to go to the hospital. I did not feel I had been a good enough friend of Meredith's to merit a visit. I did not want to bother her family, and I had no idea what sorts of things to say to them. When my mom and I got there, Meredith's mother had to come into the waiting room to let us in. When I saw Meredith's mother in the hospital, I did not think she could ever be anything but sad again. She hugged me and told me that I had always been a good friend to Meredith. I could not say anything to her. There was nothing I could do to make any of this less painful. Her words only made me feel guilty because I knew I was far from being a good friend.

Although Meredith and I had grown apart, Kathy had always remained one of Meredith's closest friends. They had planned to see each other a lot that summer. In the days after Meredith's death, Kathy lost touch with reality. It was frightening to call her when she had no idea what time or what day it was. None of us understood why Kathy was sometimes angry with us for not being sad enough and at other times angry because we were more sad than we had a right to be. She spent a lot of her grieving time painting and weaving bracelets and necklaces. It was as if she felt compelled to make up for the loss of Meredith's artistic talents.

Meredith did not have the eulogy that Baldwin says is "perhaps the last thing human beings could give each other, and it was what they demanded, after all, of the Lord." She did not have a traditional funeral. Instead, her friends and family gathered to remember her life on a Sunday afternoon. There were no speakers, no eulogies. The pictures on the tables spoke for themselves, and she was remembered in the hearts of every person there. In a way, Meredith eulogized herself. On her senior page she quoted Jack Keroauc: "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved É the ones who never yawn or say a common place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes, 'Aww!' " In her short life, Meredith always burned brightly.

I still do not understand how she was able to get up and walk to the ambulance after the accident. I still wonder what she thought about, whether she had any idea she would die.

Libby Koehler is a member of the Amherst College Class of 2001