Please keep in touch

By Tatiana Sanchez

As graduation draws nearer, I often stop and reflect on the friendships that I will leave behind and the classmates I will never see again once I walk across that stage. After four years of classes, parties, late-night talks and Taco Bell runs, I'm aware that many of the people I have spent time with will become complete strangers come June. The only thing I'll have to hold onto are these memories themselves.

But losing touch with old classmates and friends is inevitable, or at least that's what I've told myself for a good portion of my life. After graduation people part ways and begin to build their own lives and follow their own dreams, without ever looking back at the people they leave behind.

It's exactly what happened to me in high school. While at first saying goodbye was sad, I quickly became caught up with my own social calendar in college. I sensed that the same would happen once I graduated from Santa Clara, and this time I felt I was ready to accept the fact that I would simply lose touch with a lot of people.

That is until one of my high school classmates from home was diagnosed with terminal cancer in January.

I attended a small private all-girls school in San Francisco. In a tight knit school of teenage girls, hormones, shrieks, laughter and gossip fill up the hallways.

Rita was my friend since the beginning. I remember having countless classes with her, in which we would sit and talk about innocent adolescent topics -- mostly boys, homework and making fun of our teachers.

What tied me so close to Rita was not so much the fact that I was always around her, but the fact that we shared the same last name. To her I was never "Tatiana" or "Tati." To her I was always "Sanchez." I can still picture her walking into homeroom saying, "Hey, Sanchez."

Though I knew Rita for all four years of high school, we simply lost touch after graduation. I became absorbed with my college social life, while she married and started a family.

I never called, nor did I try to contact her in any way, simply because I wasn't bothered by the fact that, well, we went our separate ways.

To be honest, I was not concerned with reconnecting with Rita, maybe because like so many other people I foolishly thought I would have a lifetime of opportunities to speak to her again. But that time never came.

No one was made aware of Rita's cancer until the very end, when it was too late to say goodbye. There was no way of contacting her, no address to visit and no number to call.

I'd love more than anything to say that Rita's battle with cancer was simply a nasty dream, that it never happened and that she is perfectly healthy and happy. But it didn't happen that way.

Rita was first diagnosed with lymphoma cancer in 2009. While she fought and won the battle against lymphoma, she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor soon after in January. She passed away in March, just three months after her diagnosis. Rita left behind her parents, a husband and a beautiful two-year-old baby boy.

I've always felt that regret is the worst feeling in the world. My experience with Rita's death just reinforces this sentiment. It's been a month since she passed and I still think of her every day. I wonder how different things would have been if I had ever taken the time to try and contact Rita, just to see how she was doing. I wish I had thought of her more often and taken the time to see her.

I think of how she must have felt to know that her time on earth was limited, and I wish so badly that I would've been there with her to share her pain. I never got the opportunity to say goodbye to Rita and I will never get the chance to see her again, at least not in this life.

I can't take back the years I did not keep in touch with her, but I have the opportunity to keep in touch with the classmates I will be graduating with in June.

We shouldn't wait for our high school or college reunions to get in touch with old classmates: now is the time to do it. Spend time with those old classmates who once made you laugh, who were there for you when you cried and who helped create great memories with you along the way. Call them up, just to say hello.

Don't waste any more time because time here on earth is never guaranteed. Tell them you love them, tell them you miss them, tell them you still remember the good times. Don't waste another day thinking that things simply change or that losing touch is simply part of life.

And for those preparing to walk across that stage in June just like me, do not settle with the fact that we will all simply go our separate ways. Make a vow to keep in touch with the classmates who made your years at Santa Clara worthwhile.

Tatiana Sanchez is a senior English major and opinion editor for The Santa Clara.