Life Without Your Best Friend

Written by: Hannah Bischoff

Loosing your best friend is one of the hardest things in life. Now picture your best friend as your step-dad. Even harder. Junior Hayley Johnston knows exactly how that feels. It’s been a little over seven months since she lost her best friend, her step-dad.

“He was my second dad,” Johnston said. “He was one of my best friends.”

It all started the night of Sept. 20, when Johnston’s step-dad, Steven Trout, was riding fast on his motorcycle, not wearing a helmet. He pulled onto I-35, a very busy and fast-moving interstate, loosing control of his bike. The trailer of a truck trying to avoid him struck him.

Now it’s the morning after, Sept. 21, 6 a.m., and the highway patrol is at Johnston’s front door. It hit hard. Hayley was just in shock. She couldn’t believe the words she was hearing being said to her mother next to her: “Your husband was killed ma’am. Motorcycle accident.”

“It was literally one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt in my life.” Johnston said.

Everything was in slow motion. Shock was setting in. Everything that Hayley would ever know about her current life was about to be drastically changed. She just lost an important person in her life.

With that being hard enough, Hayley also had to move making life even more stressful.

“It’s hard to have a routine when everything constantly changes.” she said.

She wanted to keep everything in her life the same but that just wasn’t going right. She had to be out of her apartment only a month after he died. Her step-dad had been working for the apartment company they lived in so they got discounted apartments but after he died they had to find somewhere cheaper to live for at least then.

There is never a good time for someone you love to die but being just a month after school started made it harder. It was when Johnston needed him the most in her life.

“Hayley came back to school after it all happened a completely different person yet more stronger.” former classmate, Kathryn Peterson said.

Hayley explained how she is still in shock about it all.

“I pray to God I don’t have to feel anything that terrible for a long time.” she said. “Even though it’s been one of the worst experiences ever, it’s made me stronger.”

Even though life has changed incredibly for Hayley, the experience really has made her stronger. She now relates to many different people in different ways.

Hayley’s family recently learned that her step-dad collided with a driver under the influence of alcohol.