Eli Salit was 13 when her cousin Dylan Hill died from drowning after eating psychedelic mushrooms in 2010 at age 16.

Salit described losing someone her own age as being much more difficult than losing a grandparent as those people were expected to die within her lifetime. Losing her cousin uprooted the whole cycle of life in her mind. It was shocking and it made her wonder who else could easily die at any moment.

“It took time to settle in, there’s kind of a few years there where you still don’t really think that it’s real and you’re angry and sad about it and just wishing that it didn’t happen and you kind of have to mature past that point before you’re actually affected and changed by it in a positive way,” Salit said.

The death caused her to realize more than she would’ve in the past, fixate on the small things that she never would’ve noticed. “As I’ve gotten older especially towards the age that he passed away, 16 and on I’ve really started to appreciate the small things more and realized that you need to appreciate the people in your life,” She said.

Having a loss so great and so close to her at such a young age opened her eyes to things that some other teenagers her age wouldn’t have been thinking about. “You never know what’s going to happen, your days really are numbered even if they’re not cut short,” Salit said.

When asked if her outlook on drugs had changed before and after the death of her cousin Salit explained, “Drugs aren’t the problem, it’s you on the drugs. You need to have a good support system and have people watching out for you. It’s not the drug that killed him it’s what happened while he was on it”

“The main cause of death was drowning. He was taking some shrooms with his friends and his father noticed he was missing from 2 a.m. on to the morning of the next day. He thought that was weird and they found him at a beach less than a mile away from his house, from night to morning they don’t know what happened but physically the cause of death was drowning,” Salit explained.

Salit has a tattoo in memory of her cousin Dylan. She finds comfort in keeping in touch with his close family and friends. “Shortly after it happened our whole family went through our photo albums together and we all kept a collection that we had personal memories with. We like to talk about it often to keep the memories alive because now it seems like so long ago,” Salit said.

As time goes on she gets increasingly older but remembers him only from that same age. “As time goes on your more disconnected from the memories almost,” Salit said.

Salit and her family enjoy listening to a song that one of Dylan’s close friends wrote after his passing.