KEYSTONE HEIGHTS – Reagan Sames knows she will be a certified registered nurse anesthetist following her graduation from Keystone Heights High.

She knows nothing will impede those plans. Fueled by equal parts ambition and anger, her determination is anchored by relationships created in the community and school. And they run deep.

So young to have endured so much, Reagan lost her younger brother when she was in seventh grade. Then last year, she lost another brother in a head-on collision near the Gainesville Airport.

Sadly, both were entirely preventable.

“I'm still going through it,” Reagan said. “It’s still one day at a time. There's not a day where I don't think about them.”

Her youngest brother, Falon, died because of a misdiagnosis. Her older brother, Ayden Tyler Graff, died on Sept. 1 when the Gainesville Police Department said Jill Stone Barnash, 47, drove her SUV at a high rate of speed in the wrong lanes of Waldo Road (U.S. Highway 301) and hit a car head-on. Ayden died at the scene; Calin Coates, also 17, died 24 days later.

Barnash was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide and one count of reckless driving with bodily injury.

“Both of those were preventable,” Reagan said. “There's a part where it does anger me, but I forgive them.”

A significant part of Reagan’s ability to manage her grief was school. She joined band in seventh grade because they gave her a free T-shirt, “but I ended up liking it.” When Falon died, her bandmates were an important support group.

“That put me in a depressive episode. It took me a while to get out of it, but I found joy in things I do,” she said. “I'm doing ROTC, and I love band. That helped me go through it, because taking on leadership responsibilities helped get my mind somewhere else and that was good.”

Then Ayden’s crash sent her into a deeper emotional tailspin.

“That just kind of set me off again,” Reagan said. “My junior year was my worst year ever, because I had a bunch of extra classes. That was my first year taking a bunch of ACE classes. My math class was the worst class I ever had because I had so much homework, and due to that event (car crash), I was just not in the right mindset. It was just a really hard year for me, but I kept pushing through.”

Her math teacher, Cynthia Loose, like so many others at the school and throughout the Lake Region, embraced Reagan in her darkest hour. And her schedule didn’t leave much time for her emotions to wander.

“I had responsibilities. That junior year, I was the battalion commander over at JROTC,” she said. “I'm not a person to quit, even when I'm not feeling like it, or when I'm upset. I kept doing my responsibilities. I was the drum major of band, and I am still holding high leadership positions.”

The pain remains, but she buries it in a busy schedule, a blanket of support and happy memories of her brothers that slowly get happier with each passing day.

And someday, she will become a CRNA – and there’s no doubt it will happen – because she’s determined nobody else will be victim of something that’s preventable.