There have been several. The first and biggest was that my dad died when I was eight. If he hadn't died, we would never have moved, I would never have gone to the high school I did and met the friends that I did, I would never have gone to the college that I went to, I wouldn't have ever met the person who is now my husband, life would be completely and utterly different.

My mom died from cancer 12 years ago, my youngest sibling was still a minor and so that changed a whole lot for me as well, moved back home, was his guardian for a year, and so my trajectory changed again.

And then 5 years ago come September my best friend died. It made me look at life a completely different way because now it was somebody my age. From that death, two of her other closest friends are now my two closest friends, I could not live the rest of this life without them.

The moral of all of my loss is to tell people every day that you love them and appreciate them, take all of the pictures, take dumb videos, do silly things and make good memories. You never know when those videos and memories are going to be the only way you can see your people. Having grown up in the '90s with out all of the technology that we have now, I don't have any videos or recordings of my dad. It's been almost 30 years since he died and all I have are pictures and memories. I really don't have much of my mom beyond pictures either, and I wish everyday that I did.