Reading the Obits

It's Saturday morning and hubby and I are perusing the papers. He is reading the sports. I am reading the comics. Perhaps this is symbolic? I don't know, its just how it is. Anyway, after looking at the sports he goes on to look at the local happenings and then the world stage. I will go on to read the advice columns, the entertainment news and then on to the obituaries. I don't read them with hope of seeing someone there, honest! I read them for lots of reasons. I scan them first to see if any names pop out at me, people I know who have been very sick or I haven't seen for a long time. I look at the small section that lists people who are famous or at least seminally so, to see if I recognize their accomplishments. I don't study them and usually don't read any in depth unless there is a particularly long or flowery one. Sometimes it seems like the paper will group them into geographical regions, I'll see more on one side of the river than on the other some days. I never asked if this was the case, I'm not obsessed with obits, after all. Just curious. I could branch out at this point and begin to wonder what it was like when the deceased "crossed over", but that isn't the direction I wanted to go in today.

I saw a name I recognized today. I lived in a small town growing up. It bordered another small town, but this one boasted the area high school that my siblings and their friends and my husband and his siblings all went to. If you lived in either of these small towns you went to this high school. You dated people from this area and I know many people never left the area, settling permanently with their spouses to raise children who would also go to this high school. I took the road less traveled and attended the vocational school during my high school years. But the guys from the next town were the available guys to date, so even though I didn't go to school with them, I dated some of them. One of those guys lost in memory...his father passed away. I saw the name, read the obituary and was transported some 45 years back to a time when I knew the son. Knew his wavy brown hair and luscious chocolate brown eyes. Knew that when he smiled, there was a little dimple in his cheek. Knew the roguish twinkle in his eyes and knew NOT to be alone with him in the next room, tempting though it might be. How could one name bring all that back with such clarity? I have no idea. It's happened on more than one occasion. This guy and two of his other compatriots were part of a sphere of my adolescence that changed me from the young girl in elementary school to the young lady of high school. They didn't do anything special, there wasn't some breakthrough moment or some heart-rending tragedy which embedded these guys in my brain. They were just there, helping me without knowing it, to be part of growing up in a small town. I felt sorry for this guy I used to know. My own dad passed away about 25 years ago and it's not an easy thing to lose your father. Of course, being me, I thought I should send a card. But really? A card? From someone in this guys very distant past who probably wouldn't recognize the name even if I signed it with my maiden name. No, a card was a dumb idea. But I offered sympathy in my own way. By writing down my thoughts in this blog.

Sorry for your loss, Vince. Take care. It'll get better.