I Buried 10 Family Members and Friends During College — Here’s What It Taught Me About Life

During college, most people are discovering who they are. They’re planning careers, making memories, and imagining the future.

My college experience looked different.

During those years, I buried 10 family members and friends.

Ten.

Not people I read about. Not distant connections. People I loved. People I laughed with. People who helped shape who I was becoming.

Experiencing that much loss at a young age forces you to grow up quickly. It changes the way you see life, time, and the opportunities placed in front of you.

But more than anything, it taught me something powerful.

Life is too short to live halfway.

Pain Can Either Stop You or Shape You

Loss can do two things to a person.

It can break you, or it can build something inside of you that refuses to quit.

There were moments where grief felt overwhelming. Moments where it would have been easy to slow down, withdraw, or let the weight of everything happening around me define my future.

But adversity has a strange way of sharpening your focus.

When you’ve stood at that many funerals, you start to understand something many people don’t realize until much later in life:

Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

And once you realize that, you start living differently.

You Stop Waiting

You stop waiting for the “perfect moment.”

You stop waiting until you feel completely ready.

You stop postponing dreams that keep calling your name.

Because you understand something deeply—time is one of the most valuable things we have.

The people we lose remind us of that every single day.

You Start Moving With Purpose

Loss can create urgency.

It makes you ask yourself questions that most people avoid:

Am I becoming the person I’m meant to be?

Am I using my gifts?

Am I making the most of the time I’ve been given?

For me, those questions became motivation.

Motivation to work harder.

Motivation to build something meaningful.

Motivation to leave an impact that matters.

Not just for myself, but for the people who are no longer here to chase their own dreams.