The Bag of Memories I Threw Away

That plastic bag haunted me. At 11, when my friend "T" passed from a brain tumor I didn't even know she had, another classmate dumped all T's belongings on me - notebooks, her favorite purple water bottle, even a camera with our last memories together. I was angry. Hurt. Betrayed that adults hid her illness from me. So in my grief-stricken panic, I did the unthinkable: waited for garbage day and threw every precious item away, terrified I'd get blamed for taking them. Now, decades later, I still see her parents' faces when they discovered her things missing. That camera's lost photos torture me most - snapshots of our last school trip, T's smile frozen in pixels I condemned to the landfill. We were just kids drowning in grief no one prepared us for. But some choices stay with you forever. #ChildhoodRegrets #GriefUnprocessed #TheThingsWeCarry #LostMemories