Remembering

I have tried to start this post three times now, and keep having to erase everything and start over.

I've talked before about being picked on as a child by just about everyone around me, about not having many real friends until junior high, and how even then I was typically an excellent target for anyone with a bad day or a nasty rumor or trick to play. There were a few people who reliably refrained from the fun.

One such person was a boy I met in 5th grade. He wasn't the richest boy, or the smartest, or the one with the best home life, but he was one of the nicest. He was a clown, a boy who always looked for attention in any way possible, even when things may not have been the easiest for him. When we were in middle school, he was a boy who had a notice circulated about him to the teachers at the school to not let him have bathroom passes because he spent the whole time wandering the halls of the school, talking to everyone he met. He was a Friend, with a capital F, to anyone who would have him as such.

I didn't see him as often once we got to high school, but when I did, he was still friendly and easy to talk to, without a harsh word. He was still marching to the beat of his own drummer, and after graduation, he followed the sound right into the military. This is where I lost track of him, although I still thought of him from time to time. There's one boy in Josie's class in particular that brings him to mind, and I have thought of him often as I have worked in the class.

The boy became a man, and left one branch of the military only to join another ten years later. He went to Texas, and lived in the army barracks. I hear that he still made friends wherever he went.

Last week, the boy I knew, now 35, succumbed to his depression. He took a bottle of pills and went to sleep. The men in his outfit found him. Free from whatever demons had plagued him, his remains were shipped home for a wake and funeral, with full military honors. I wish I could have been there to say goodbye to this person who was a small sliver of kindness when I needed a friendly face. I wish I had been able to give him a hand in return for the ones he had given me. I hear that he had shut down at the end, was avoiding questions and running the other way when people probed. I wish I had been one of those people, just so I could have tried, too. Though I haven't spoken to him in years, the news of his death, particularly in this way, is a cold shock that has taken up a stubborn residence between my shoulderblades. The concept that someone who gave so much of himself to the people around him could die a lonely, self-inflicted death is beyond my comprehension.

You will be missed, Craig. The world is a worse place without you.