I met Nika on the first day of sixth grade in Mrs. Barnette’s sixth period P.E. class, both of us wearing the same purple shirt from the Target athletic section. I immediately had this overwhelming and unexplainable urge to be her friend. After catching me staring at her shirt, she noticed my gaze, winked and threw up a peace sign. That moment was undoubtedly the highlight of my first day of middle school. 

From that moment, we were instant friends. I ran track laps with her every day of sixth grade, made cupcakes with her every weekend of seventh grade and roomed with her for both the Yosemite and Disneyland trips in eighth.

Nika and I stuck to each other like glue. She was my partner in crime, my better half and my best friend. And of all the things I have ever done in my life, of all the inspirational quotes about courage I’ve read and of all the movies about bravery, nothing has quite managed to inspire me like she has. This is her story. 

Nika’s story of courage starts one Saturday in August prior to seventh grade. I went to her house after being berated my mother in the car and I was annoyed. I sat on her bed, complaining about the injustices that my mother subjected me to daily and after 20 minutes, we went to the park to film a music video to “Call Me Maybe.”

A couple hours later, my mother came to pick me up. Nika and I stayed upstairs in her room, hoping that our mothers would converse and give us an extra 15 minutes together. My mom called me down some time later and I left. 

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” my mother said somberly once we were in the car. “I just had a conversation with Nika’s mom. She’s been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She told me that she’s been given two more years to live.”

My stomach dropped, my throat became constricted and I was overcome with shame. I’d sat on her bed mere hours ago, complaining about my mom when my very best friend had only two years left with her own. I couldn’t believe that this was a real thing happening to Nika, to my Nika. I cried myself to sleep that night, filled with sadness for one of the people in this world who I loved most. 

I later learned that I’d found out about Nika’s mother’s illness before Nika herself. Her mother had just learned of her diagnosis, and in her overwhelming sadness, had told my mom. Nika’s mother was diagnosed with ALS, a disease that causes the death of neurons that control voluntary muscles.

Every day for three and a half years after that, Nika lived with a mother who was waging a war against a vicious illness. She dealt with unimaginable pain and stress every single day as she watched her mother — her hero and the one person who was supposed to be there with her through everything — slowly lose to the disease. 

And yet, in spite of all the pain that she endured, Nika was still filled with joy. I think the reason I became friends with Nika in the first place is because she had an uncanny ability to make the people around her happy. And even though she was going through hell at home, even though she was slowly losing the person in the world that she loved more than anything, she never lost her spirit. She brought lemon cupcakes to school, she made slime, she stressed over math tests and she found a reason to smile every day.

Nika’s mom passed away on Nov. 7, 2019. I went to her house with my mom after she told me through a text, and walking up to her house and ringing the doorbell knowing that she’d just lost her mom was the scariest moment of my life. Her aunt answered the door and called her, and Nika walked out through the kitchen. I remember hugging her as she cried in my arms.

The next weekend, I attended her mom’s memorial service. Nika told her the story of her mother’s life alongside one of her sisters, and even though she was at the memorial service of her own mother, she managed to make a room full of crying people laugh. She stood in front of a hundred people with strength and courage that I know I will never have. 

Nika still comes to school every day with a smile. I have never left a conversation with her without feeling happy. She wakes up every day with the courage to face the world, to face all the stress and pain of life and she does it with more happiness than anyone I have ever met. Her bravery has inspired me as long as I have known her.

At the memorial, this song lyric stuck out to me, “You taught me the courage of stars before you left, how light carries on endlessly, even after death.” Nika has shown me what real bravery looks like every day since I’ve met her. Even though her entire world fell apart, she never lost the spark of the girl who winked at me because we were wearing the same shirt. 

Nika, you, more than anyone or anything else in the world, have “taught me the courage of stars.” Thank you for being the person you are. You inspire me everyday.