Life moves along...

I had a bit of a free day today, and I envisioned getting all sorts of things done.  I got my oil changed, took care of some laundry, and even read 2 articles from the front page of today's Wash Post.

I was also going to blog about something.  I wasn't sure what.  Initially I think I was going to recap what a wonderful event my parent's 40th anniversary was the other week.  And maybe I should because what happened last night puts many things into perspective.  But I found out through email and Facebook that a friend of mine died the other day along with her sister in-law.  They were strolling along the lava shelf on the island of Kuai'i, and a large wave swept them off the rocks and into the sea, drowning them both.  

She happened to be one of the kindest people I'd known.  The first time I met Heather was in the 4th grade.  We were also in the same 5th grade class together.  And for the next 24 years, we bumped into each other at school or by sharing mutual friends. 

A funny story I remember is from the 5th grade camp out,  an annual farewell send-off at the for our elementary careers.  My mother chaperoned the cabin in which Heather stayed.  One night, while the 5 or so girls were trading stories in the cabin, a mouse scurried across the floor, and immediately, everyone was on the beds shrieking, just like the movies.  Heather clutched my mother, along with the other screaming 10 year-olds until the mouse disappeared.

Several years ago, I dated her best friend for a short while, and again, we ran in the same circles.  On many of those occasions we'd reminisce about the people we knew twenty years prior.  To this day, every few months or so we'd bump into each other doing some Christmas shopping or some other errand and we'd trade stories for 20 minutes about what so-and-so was doing, and what our lives had become.  We were links to each others past.  

At the beginning of September, I visited Santa Fe, New Mexico with my fiancé and while there she was able to reconnect (naturally, via Facebook) with classmates from her 5th grade class.  She spent a day with the three of them trading and recollecting stories.   And I watched, enjoying the moment, knowing that I had the privilege to still be friends with many of the same people I was friends with 25 years ago.  It's a wonderful thing to see people long separated, reunite with a common bond, even if it's nothing more than being in the same 5th grade classroom.  Being from a town like Santa Fe, everyone seems to know everyone else.  Immediately upon being reunited the three took upon asking each other how so-and-so was doing and what happened to this person or that person.  Generally, the stories erupted in laughter, and the mood cast an overarching happiness that a connection, long forgotten, was re-established and perhaps in some way childhoods were revisited.

The digital age makes it easier and easier to stay connected, but even before then, when my friends and I went off to our separate colleges (although I roomed with my friend from middle school), we still stayed in touch.  I travelled to Florida State to watch football games.  I enjoyed the first BCS title game in college history with three of my best friends from elementary school and high school, travelling to Tempe AZ to see the game.  Two of those friends also happened to be in the same class as Heather in the 4th grade.

So I'm reflecting a bit here (not so succintly, I suppose) about the fragility of life and the sadness that some link to your past is lost when a tragedy like this happens.  Death is personal experience.  It's easy to have sympathy for those who lose their lives, documented every day on the news, but there's no perspective on the periphery who are affected.  When it's someone who you share common memories with, it becomes intensely personal.   

When my girlfriend at the time (Heather's best friend), moved to LA, we decided to make it a cross-country road trip, in the most American of traditions.  Heather flew to New Orleans to meet us half-way, and we spent 2 days exploring the city.  Heather was the first person to introduce me to the beignet at Cafe du Mond, in New Orleans.  Eating a beignet, with coffee is something I never forget to do every time I visit the Big Easy for years afterward.  

Eating a beignet is a simple memory, but it's also something that changed the way I experienced life afterwards.  I travel to New Orleans and Cafe du Mond becomes part of the story, the experience.  The cross-country trip to LA is an incomplete narrative without Heather.  There are other stories, but I won't cram them all in here.  Thinking about Heather's death forces me to reflect on all the memories I share with other friends and family, and how these friends have shaped the way I can reflect on certain periods of my life.

Heather was not my wife, nor my sister or best friend.  For others out there, especially her husband, it's difficult to imagine what he must be coping with, losing his wife and sister on the same day.  He apparently jumped into the ocean and tried to save them.  He's lucky to be alive, although he's now forced to move through life without them, contemplating the meaning of it all.  Perhaps that's what's most difficult.  Ascribing some sort of purpose to tragedy is simply maddening.  Maybe there is no purpose.  It's only horrible circumstance.  Death is an intensely personal experience where it seems we're never ready to accept it's sudden introduction into our lives.  I can only hope that her husband and her family find the strength to move past this terrible moment. 

Heather was a sweet, sweet person and will be missed by many...