Today, once more, The United States is reeling from another mass shooting.
Only the places change.
I'm sick about it.
But I was reeling for long before I heard of it.
Social Media, you see. It got me back in touch with people I thought passed out of my life long ago. Years ago I got back in touch with my very first crush. I'll call him E. I still remember the day we held hands and climbed the monkey bars together. He was always good to me. In second grade I decided I wanted to marry him. I didn't, but we became kind of friends. He never bullied me and often put a stop to bullying when he saw it happening to me. When I finally got onto Facebook he welcomed me and we corresponded when we saw each other.
He was a good, kind, funny, fun, man.
He was.
Yesterday I saw people leaving memorials for E on social media. This must be a joke. I thought. He's my age. He wasn't sick. He can't be dead.
Of course it was true. That smiling boy who took my hand in second grade, went to sleep last night and never woke up. He had (that we know at this time) no underlying health problems. He had no drug problems. He did not die of pancreatic cancer like the valedictorian of my high school class. No one knows why or what happened. We only know that the people who knew him have a darkness in their lives where his light was.
I'm now asking the same questions the family and friends of those killed in Las Vegas are asking. I'm grieving. I always meant to send a text to him that maybe we could meet and hang out. I always thought that there was time. I always thought that there would still be time. Why wasn't there time?
On one of the memorials someone quoted the title quote. It is from the Yom Kippur liturgy. I wondered if E sat in a synagogue on Yom Kippur and listened to it on his last day.
There are times where this whole life thing doesn't make sense. It is up to us to try to make some degree of sense. The week before I went out to see my high school crush/best friend for the first time in years. Both our families had a great time and I plan to see more of each other. I don't know how much time we have.
What would you do if you knew that you didn't have much time? What is stopping you?
Sorry to hear this. It's a horrible, dawning feeling of dread when you see those memorials on social media. It happened to me recently with an old friend that I hadn't known was ill. The sad truth is that most of us can't really appreciate the value of time until we actually know we have little of it left.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry for your loss. The weird thing about social media sometimes is how we find out about death. Last year, one of my sorority sisters died unexpectedly. That was a weird day.
ReplyDeleteI don't think much about time and what to do with my time. I think I try to just do things otherwise I'd probably get anxious and depressed over not being able to do everything I want or feel I should do.
I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Thank you also for the quote form the Yom Kippur liturgy. For me the weird thing about social media and death is that I'm still Facebook "friends" with a close friend of mine who died of cancer several years ago. It's an awkward thing. Do I "unfriend" my dead friend? It feels wrong, but it's also bizarre to have her in my friend list. Social media has really changed the way that we interact with death and grief.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for your loss. I try to be my best, do my best each day. The one thing I keep meaning to do is update and organize all the photos and my journals, that would likely be my final hours activity.
ReplyDeleteI have learned of deaths 4 times in thw last three years through social media (including blogs) and felt gut punched each time.