Someone once said, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” In life, there is no way of knowing how long we have to live and spend with the people we love. In the blink of an eye, someone so precious and dear to many can be taken from this world, and all that is left are memories.

August 9th was the night of my party. My seven month late birthday bonfire. All of my friends were going to be there. It would be a night not soon forgotten.

As people began to arrive, I became more excited that I thought was possible. We all headed to my backyard, separating to play different yard games. Some of the guys were tossing around a football, others were playing corn-hole, but Valerie and I decided to challenge Morgan and Julia at a game of ladder golf. Valerie and I soon beat Morgan and Julia 21-7. They weren’t much competition. As the evening progressed, our luck continued. We played four more rounds of ladder golf. We were undefeated. Unfortunately, the time came when we lost to Skyler and Tyler. Although we were upset to lose, we laughed at how much fun we had.

As the night continued, we all took turns playing ping pong and having pull up challenges. The guys all took their turns, trying to outdo the person previous to them. Finally, Devyn went and impressed us all. Valerie, as competitive as ever, said, “If Devyn can do one, so can I!” which is exactly what she did. I can still picture her kicking her way above the bar. It was adorable.

We sat around the bonfire as the sun set; eating food and sharing stories. We blared music and danced crazily. Dustin and I taught Valerie how to wop. We were professional dancers. Val and I made plans to learn how twerk. We were going to dance together at homecoming. By then we would be the best at the wop and hopefully twerking as well.

When it was finally dark we all went star tipping and watched for shooting stars. Ten of us tried to star tip at once which was an epic fail. Valerie also wanted to try. Turning to me she shouted out, “Hannah! We HAVE to go together!” How could I say no? The grass was slippery. Our balance was off. We fell before the lights came on. Everyone, including ourselves, laughed at how silly we were.

As the night came to an end, we all hugged and said our goodbyes, unaware of how special this night really was. Later, I, like almost everyone else there, would realize that would be the last night we had to spend with Valerie. The plans we made would never happen. All that was left were the memories we shared. I know I am very thankful that we all made the most of that night and will cherish the memories made with Valerie and my other friends forever.