By Maria Morava

Copyright newsweek

In a story of love and loss that has touched hearts online, a woman’s engagement joy was quickly followed by an unimaginable tragedy.In a TikTok video, Erin O’Neil shared her experience when, five days after celebrating a new chapter with her fiance, she faced the sudden and devastating passing of her best friend. O’Neil, 31, told Newsweek about how she is now navigating wedding planning while trying to honor the memory of the woman who should have been by her side.”My best friend passed away two months ago,” she captioned the video. “I had gotten engaged just days before.”A Bond Forged in FriendshipO’Neil’s best friend, Sarah, passed away from acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The two met 13 years ago on a club gymnastics team at Boston University.O’Neil described Sarah as “smart, stubborn, hilarious, competitive and a truly good person.” When O’Neil moved to New Zealand, Sarah even made the 20-hour journey to visit her there.”Sometimes, I close my eyes and imagine we’re back on that trip, climbing volcanoes with the sun on our faces and marveling together at the beauty of the world around us,” O’Neil said.Joy and Grief, Five Days ApartThe juxtaposition of the two events has been difficult to navigate.”Getting engaged to my fiance was the best day of my life, and Sarah’s passing was the worst day of my life,” O’Neil said. “They happened five days apart. I’m still trying to navigate the conflicting feelings.”O’Neil shared that she has felt immense grief and guilt, at times feeling like she shouldn’t be happy.”The joy of my engagement is sometimes hard to find now, and I feel a lot of guilt,” she said. She has been leaning on her fiance, who, she says, “moved heaven and earth to get me from Washington, D.C., to New York in time to be with her when she died.”It is a comfort to O’Neil that Sarah knew about her engagement before she passed away, so that this new chapter of my life “has her in it, even if only on the first page.”Wedding Planning Through GriefNavigating wedding planning has been a monumental challenge without her best friend.”For a while, I didn’t want to have anything to do with wedding planning. The thought of planning a celebration was pretty unbearable when all I wanted to do was mourn,” O’Neil said.She had already chosen a gift to ask Sarah to be a bridesmaid before she passed and still has moments where the reality of her loss hits her. Looking at bridesmaid dresses particularly hurts, as O’Neil considers the ones that would have been perfect on Sarah.Despite the pain, O’Neil said she is trying not to “wallow,” knowing Sarah would be mad if she did.Honoring a Lasting LegacyO’Neil said she plans to keep Sarah’s spirit alive on her big day in several meaningful ways. While trying on wedding dresses, she found a notebook with a quote that Sarah had on her graduation cap: “To live will be an awfully big adventure.” O’Neil and her friends took it as a sign from Sarah, and she plans to have the quote embroidered on her wedding dress or veil. She will also have a picture of Sarah with her.O’Neil also shared Sarah’s passionate advocacy for cancer research and affordable health care, noting that Sarah hated the term “fighting cancer” because it implies a loss.”If cancer were a battle, Sarah would have won,” O’Neil said. “She was as determined, brave and tenacious in her cancer journey as she was in every other aspect of her life …”If there is any battle or fight, it is the fight for a society where no one has to worry about affording treatment after they’ve been diagnosed with cancer. It is the fight for scientific advancement—and a society that champions it—so that no one will die from acute myeloid leukemia. We can all take part in this fight for a cure and continue Sarah’s advocacy.”O’Neil’s advice to others in a similar situation is to “cleave to hope in whatever way it makes sense to them.””For me, it’s hope that Sarah is in a beautiful place, that she’s watching over me, and that someday we’ll be reunited,” O’Neil said. “I hope that, someday, somewhere, Sarah will be waiting for me. I believe she will be.”