An innocent enough question, hey I remember Palmer the art teacher at the high school but who were the other 2?
Dunsworth. I remembered that one immediately but no one seems to remember the third, they were mean though 😆.
Well I'm still Facebook friends with Kirn, let's scroll through their friends maybe some names will jump out.
Oh they did, name after name - opened in new tabs to come back to. Hello high school memories. X, and Y, and oh jeez I haven't though about Z in years!
Wow, kids and married, ooh nice degree, and... what?
No.
No, he can't be.
He can't be gone? He's younger than I am ...
I found the obituary right away, started working my way through as many of our friends from that time as I could think of. No details, but just about everyone had a heart felt post about how funny and smart he was. Ornery grin and mischievous glint in his eye.
We haven't talked since 2008 ish, but this hurts, a lot, and I'm not sure why.
I thought about my current circle and extended venn diagrams of relations. There is someone else in the hospital right now. On a ventilator, it's not good. But my thoughts went to impacts, outward ripples and feels. The pain and fear caused by the hospitalization, has impacted my loved one. And by proxy, now weighs heavy on my heart.
I would never claim to be a part of that "family" but yet - here I sit, feeling some hurt of it.
Is that why the death of the high school friend hurts so much? The latent outward ripples? The residual memories? The deeply buried giggles and shenanigans longing to be remembered and felt. That terribly cute face, now gone forever?
All I have to offer right now, is a small poem.
"Rocked by a death
that happened over a year ago,
only just now discovered.
A whispered beg of forgiveness,
"I'm so sorry, I didn't know." "
