As my senior year at Fordham was coming to an end, I received life changing news. I remember we were two days away from my birthday and finals week approaching. I was relieved that soon all the hard work would have paid off and I would get to celebrate with my friends. Considering I did not have classes on Wednesdays, I took the day to clean my room. I also recall allergy season reaching a peak for me and my doctors had suggested I stayed indoors. While I did not know it, my phone had been blowing up with messages and phone calls. I was overwhelmed when I reached it. I was trying to understand what was happening, but my friends seemed to be worried about me, mainly because I suffered from health issues and we had received an email about an "emergency town hall meeting". I later understood my friends thought it could have been about me. And so, they began asking me if I will be able to attend, but I was unable to go due to the pollen and the impact it has on my body. I asked those who I knew were attending if they could keep me updated, and they said they would. A million thoughts went through my mind. I thought of the director of the program I worked for at the time who had gotten surgery, and maybe something got complicated as he was trying to heal. And so, I just waited, trying to calm myself down while at the time, being home alone. The town hall was set to start at 6 PM. I waited 20 minutes and no one had responded. None of my friends who had reached out were telling me what was going on. Becoming anxious, I start messaging them. At precisely 6:22 PM, I received a message: Vincent passed away. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and my first response to my friend Diana was " OMG What? No, you are lying. I am so sorry." I went into disbelief but also into a state of shock. I had experienced hard losses of family members in the past, but I had never experienced one of my friends passing away. That day I sat in my bedroom feeling like I couldn't move and I just didn't know what to do besides write. Writing has always been therapeutic for me, and so I wrote Vincent a poem on "Everything I wish I said". Vincent was not just one of my friends, but was also a coworker. I remember going back to campus and feeling this emptiness inside, this stabbing pain in my chest and attending a memorial mass with so many other people who were experiencing this loss with me. I went to counseling services provided by the school and group sessions, but those just made me angry to know that the school would not tell us what happened to my friend. What had happened to Vincent who I had seen the week prior at a ceremony. Due to the lack of knowledge of the cause of death, many resorted to the conclusion that he committed suicide. During those last few weeks on campus, I felt I was losing my mind. I didn't know how to possibly focus on my exams and be happy about graduation and celebrating with my friends, when one of my friends was no longer there; how to smile through a weight I knew we were all carrying. It turns out, 2022 was a heavy year for me, for Vincent was 1 of 6 people I lost that year but was definitely the hardest to get through. For me, Vincent's death reminded me of how short life is and how you just never know what someone might be going through. Vince was someone I always admired for his strength, physically and mentally. I learned that one of the things that matters most in life is taking care of myself and my needs as well as spending time with the people I love and care about. There are moments when I think about how close I feel to Vincent now that he's gone and things I wish I would have done when he was still with us. There is always a part of me that wishes something could have intervened or prevented this death, even if it was one of our counselors or one of his friends. But sometimes we are so caught up in our world, that we forget to check in on others. And so, I aim to always check in with my students and ask them about how they are doing outside of academics, because that isn't everything. While school is important, it means nothing if the student is unwell.