Memorial

When I was 16, I did a summer production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the theatre I'd been working at for several years. Every year the theatre does an outdoor Shakespeare production on the stage of the downtown green/lawn, which happens to be right outside the theatre. The production was fine, I had a good time, met some nice people, and worked on my first Shakespeare play. But I had no way of knowing at this time that I would meet one of the most influential people in my life, my (former) best friend, Jack.

The rest of that story is for another post. The point is that Jack was five years older than me, and for the first time I was extremely close to someone who was not either significantly older than me or still in high school. We hung out almost every day all summer. One day in September my mom and I went to a reading of a play about the NYC firefighters on 9/11. It talked about the many men and women who had died, and particularly several young men in their late teens and early twenties. I became severely distraught at the idea of losing my best friend who was only 21. The idea of the death of young people suddenly became a very personal possible reality.

Shortly after my 17th birthday my friendship with Jack abruptly and painfully ended. That whole event is for the next post, but over the last four years I have thought of Jack often. I would hear a blurb on the news about some twenty-something who died overseas fighting for our country. My senior year of high school I switched to a different church, and every Sunday they read from the Book of the People the names and ages of those who have died in service in the last week. Most of them are between 20 and 30 years old. I always thought about Jack when I heard those names and, after graduation, about the several classmates I knew were joining the military.

Yesterday I went to service at that church for the first time in probably almost a year. They read from the Book of the People as always, and while I thought about those people as always, and Jack, who is now 26, I also realized that now I am 21, I am as old as Jack was when I met him, I am old enough to be those people who died in combat. And I prayed for the families of those who lost their sons so young, and thanked God for all those he keeps safe, and hoped that Jack is still alive, wherever he is.