« August 31, 2005 | Main | September 12, 2005 »

September 03, 2005

RIP fellow classmate

I've never actually questioned my mortality. People have often told me that when you get older, you get to a point where you realize that there aren't as many years in front of you as there are behind. This may be the reason why people have mid-life crisis problems. I dunno ... but that's not really the point of this post.

I've never been one to listen to rumors. I appreciate facts and have always relied on the facts that I find to back up what I hear. So, when I heard that a fellow classmate from high school had passed away, I did some research on the topic, looking for his name online through search engines and the like to see what I could find. Until today, I have found nothing.

Recently, the Frankfort newspaper, The State Journal, did a follow-up with the family of this classmate of mine. I just happened to be doing some research on some old classmates and came across the article. Sure enough, what I heard a few years back was indeed true.

This has put me through a few emotions and thoughts this evening.

First, I feel bad because even though I knew of this person, I really didn't know him. You know, on a personal level. I wasn't in with the people that he hung out with. He knew who I was, I knew who he was, and that was about it. The same holds true for alot of the people in my class. I knew of them or somewhat knew them, but for the most part, I really didn't know them well at all.

It wasn't because I disliked my classmate. As a matter of fact, I neither liked nor disliked him. As far as I knew, he had no real opinion of me either. I remember him as being a free spirit, the kind of person that was on his on path and enjoyed being around his friends. He had a sense of humor and was a good student, from what I can remember.

There were alot of people like this that maybe I should've gotten to know better. After all, when you go to school with people for 13 years of your life, assuming that you go from grade 1-12, you do have some kind of ties with them regardless if you hung out or not. If anything, you were part of the same social order that made up your class.

Second, I realized that I had a completely different perspective on life in my senior year of high school than the rest of my classmates. This was made very clear to me today, as I was going through my senior yearbook.

As a senior, I was extremely focused on my future and making something of myself. I was at school for 3 hours and spent the rest of the day at work at Cable 10 on Co-Op. Everyone else, or so it seems, had a completely different senior experience than I did ... and it seems that the yearbook really showed it. They had fun. I saw groups and cliques, people that I knew well, that I really didn't associate with at all in my senior year.

Heck, I barely even remember Project Graduation ... and I showed up with a camera in hand so I could record the moment. I wasn't there to live it, I was there to remember it.

Man, what a weird thing to look back on.

Third, I wish that I had gotten to know the people that I really considered friends more than what I did. As I said, I was concentrating on the real world more than I was concentrating on those that I was around only a few hours a day. As I was going through the yearbook tonight, I counted the people in my class that I honestly considered to be good friends of mine throughout school. I counted 33 people.

Out of those 33 people, since I left high school, I have only interacted with 6 or 7 of them. Two of them I went to Panama City with and Steven came along. I saw two of them during Steven's graduation from college party. Others I have ran into out and about, and two have actually contacted me via e-mail because they were looking for me.

I know it's common for people to move away and do their own thing after high school. Sometimes, however, I wish I had kept in closer contact with some of the people that I cared for. The death of this classmate really got me thinking about what I have really missed out on in friendships. Could any other classmates have passed away over the 9+ years since graduation? What are these people doing now? Are they married? Do they have kids? Are they happy? Do they think of me at all?

The fourth item is really the reason for this post. I realized my own mortality today. This classmate of mine, he and I are/were the same age. It just goes to show you, I guess, that when God decides it's time for you to come home, it's time. There's no if, ands, or buts about it. You can't argue with God and his judgement.

I thought to myself earlier ... if I were to die tomorrow, would there be any regrets? I'm happy to say that I have really no major regrets regarding the decisions and paths that I've chosen in life. Yeah, and as I've mentioned in this post, perhaps I should've done things a bit differently when I was younger. But, I can honestly say that if I were to leave this Earth tomorrow, I could look back and say "I lead a good life".

...

Rest in piece, my classmate. I wish I knew you better.

Note: Out of the respect for his privacy and the privacy of his family, I have left out the name of the person who died, only refering to him as "my classmate".

~out...

Posted by ed at 12:42 AM | Comments (1)