You're always on my mind

Yesterday, I joined a group on FB for my 20-year high school reunion planning (please don't remind me I've been out of high school for 20 years!).  As I looked through what people had posted so far, I came upon a picture that continues to be on my mind today.  I'm not likely to stop thinking about it anytime soon, either, given the time of year it is.

The picture, simple enough, was a shot of a signed t-shirt from the school's winning fifth grade team for a Battle of the Books competition (remember how fun those were?  Choose a great team, read a bunch of books, and answer a few questions in the hope that you'll beat out all the other teams and move on to compete with other schools).  Forever memorialized, this shirt is on the wall at the elementary school those winners attended.

One of those winners; however, is no longer with us today.  Just looking at the signature in his fifth-grade cursive handwriting pushes me into that place I go to in March and September although I do think about him frequently and in short bursts throughout the year.  In March it will be 16 years since his death, and in September he would have turned 38.  For some reason I still have a hard time dealing with the loss of my friend.

Will and I knew each other ever since we were babies, maybe even when we were still fetuses growing in our mom's bellies.  Our families were close and we spent a lot of time together.  Will and I seemed pretty inseparable and he was probably my first official best friend.  We even went to 8th grade prom as friends.

In high school, we didn't spend as much time together.  As we move through life, our friendships seem to come and go.  However, with Will, there was still that deep bond that wouldn't ever be broken even if we didn't hang out every day or converse on a regular basis.

As we grew up, we just had different paths.  Different friends, different choices, different life experiences--it's inevitable in order to become who we are meant to be.  Still, it doesn't make it any less painful that I didn't spend more time with him during and after high school.  If I had, I'm not sure it would have changed his life route, but at least I would have been physically present in his life.

So, 16 years later, I still can't change the past.  All I can really do is hope to someday move on from this loss and perhaps start to turn my twice yearly mourning cycles into something more positive--perhaps a remembrance instead.  Maybe next year if I see his name scrawled on something in his neat penmanship I'll be able to smile fondly instead of frown with sadness.  For now, I just hope he knows (wherever he is) that people love and miss him all the time.