This is Lee’s story, as told by Angela Borrello. Our “Opening Our Hearts” stories are based on people’s real-life experiences with loss. By sharing these experiences publicly, we hope to help our readers feel less alone in their experience of grief and, ultimately, to aid them in their healing processes. In this post, we tell the story of a young woman whose friend was killed during a carjacking. 

Credit: nick.com

Twenty-four hours after I heard my friend had been killed in a botched carjacking, my body began to shut down. It felt as if a sharp cramp was creeping up the back of my legs, torso, neck and into my head. By the time the pain had spread to its full extent, I was immobilized.
But as I lay shrouded in the vast cloak of grief and pain, all of a sudden I felt my friend’s presence enter the room. Although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain it, it was one of those things I just knew in my gut: In that moment I knew he was there. I felt him move through the room. He came to where I was resting and lay down on top of me, and I felt the weight of a body over me. There was a kind of comfort in his presence, unexpected and unique as it was. And then, just as quickly as he came, he left.

As I lay shrouded in the vast cloak of grief and pain, all of a sudden I felt my friend’s presence enter the room.

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