Encircled

Just when you begin to find equilibrium again after a parent's passing, you get your legs cut out from under hearing about a classmate.  It's more than forty years since graduation.  So it shouldn't be too surprising.  We tend to make mistakes thinking about averages as they are applied to people.  Everyone makes it to the mean and some cheat beyond it a bit.  That's where the head is even though it's not what the math says.

I am not ready even to begin to think about it.  It seems a time for sharing, aches and pains as well as reminisces.  We're old enough for that, too old for mommy to make the owie go away, but still very young.  I really regret not having made it back to the reunion last spring.

It is said that justice is blind, but so must be the grim reaper regarding his next selection.  This is neither about punishment nor atonement.  It is simply a random act, one that seems horribly unfair.  The tears come and that's what they have to say.

And then you try to find recollections of school when the memories were formed.  He was really skinny and wiry.  It's hard to know what's a true memory anymore, but I believe I used to tickle him in the stomach and he would bend over in response, just boys being boys.  He was a science guy but bio, which wasn't my thing.  The classroom memories are nada. The memories are only about his appearance and his tone.  He got along well with people.  He was gentle.

It was a very big school.  There are so many classmates.  They have children.  The process self-replicates.  Yet the circle morphs into a line segment, one where the end may be coming into sight.  Denial tempts us.  Recall pains us.  Is this what it's going to be like from here on?