I was doing
some internet research early this week for a book project on which I
am working, and I accidentally came across an obituary with a
familiar name. It took me a moment to think of why I remembered the
name, and exactly who the person had been. She had been a classmate
of mine in high school. Although I don’t think we were ever really
friends, we shared a seat in almost all the most challenging classes
in our school, when they were still divided into classrooms of high
performers, average students, and those benefiting from some
remediation. I suppose in the lingo of today, she would have been
within my academic cohort.
I graduated
from high school one year early to attend college in an era where
this was considered sacrilege, but I had my father’s approval.
Although I continued contact with about four classmates over the
years from my high school class, I didn’t really keep in touch with
the others, and I didn’t return to the area. I did hear when
several of our class died in separate car crashes and one in a fire,
and I grieved them.
I graduated
from two colleges and started a career as a registered nurse. The
closest I came to hearing from anyone at the high school was during
the time I had the school psychologist as a patient. He was a dear
man who saw the school quite differently than I had. As my twenties
progressed, I married, became the mother of two babies in rapid
succession, and moved out of state as I balanced career, parenthood,
and a new house.
Over the years,
the several careers I have enjoyed had to mesh with the lives of the
five children I eventually had. During a more bullish economy, we
sold our homes and moved about every five years, being careful to put
more money down on each home. I rarely gave thought to high school,
although I did stay in touch with close friends from there, and from
college. As time progressed, more and more of my friends from high
school and college were spread over the country. Many of my college
friends became college professors. One became a physician after
having been a registered nurse. Some became entrepreneurs. I
learned that from my high school class five had become engineers, two
had become physicians, one had become a nurse practitioner. One had
become an artist. Four became teachers. Eventually, my own high
school class blurred a little bit with the students a year older or a
year younger who were there at the same time.
This week,
when I saw my classmate’s obituary, I remembered that she was a
lovely girl. She was bright, always happy, and was very attractive
and had thick blonde hair. She was never negative about anything we
had to do there. She always tried her best, and she was good at
sports, academics, and anything social. I remembered that she was
really good in tennis, and that she had the distinction of being an
academic standout as well as a varsity cheerleader. I remembered
that one of her brothers was in school with us, and that they were
always glad to see one another. I remember once thinking while
watching her laugh as we played soccer, that blondes must really have
more fun.She
had flourished in high school where I had scrambled to get away.
While I had
been raising children, developing careers, and enjoying friends in
another state, my classmate had attended three universities and
graduated as an artist. She returned to our home
state,
married and had two children. She became a part of the challenging
and highly political art world which will chew you up and spit you
out faster than any high school will.
Today, my
classmate is gone from Earth. She left two children who are doing
well. She was divorced before she died, and the obituary gives no
clue as to how she passed. I can hardly imagine the young smiling
woman I knew divorcing anyone. As I recall, we weren’t really
friends and yet I knew her middle name when I saw her obituary. I
remembered where she lived, how she looked, her brother and what he
planned to study in college. She had been resilient, in a place where
I hadn’t been. Perhaps I had not yet been worthy of being her
friend. I grieve her life cut short. I grieve the time she will not
be spending with her young adult children. She will miss living long
enough to see her grandchildren here on Earth.
I think she left
something important to me that she doesn’t even know about. She
left me the example of always smiling, of doing your level best
wherever you are. She always bloomed where she was planted, where I
might have whined about the soil. I think she might also have
taught me that the people you might see every day, and who might not
seem important in your life, might actually be important to you
later. I took a moment away from the book I was writing to cry for
her. I think you probably lived a pretty good life if a classmate
from many years ago thinks of you kindly, and cries at the thought of
your passing.
