School daze.

The memory haunting me today is a memory of high school, actually of my senior year. I remember during one of the senior meetings a teacher got up and said 'Look around, one of you will be gone within a year, 5 of y'all will be gone within 10 years.' All of us, excited about exiting high school and starting our lives just could not face our mortality. Youth, its the ignorant bliss of thinking you will live forever. I recently saw a list of all in my class who had died. Granted, its been 24years since high school, but there are some memories that are packed up tight, never to be altered. One of those are school friends. They aren't allowed to age much less die. Yet, there I was looking at the list. The first one out of the gate was Troy, I want to say it was 6 months after graduation that he left us. Then the 5 were, Trae, Michelle, Dickey, Lisa and Kim, I can tell you, you can justify your parents dying because its the natural scheme of things that they go before you, waking up to a phone call and not being able to comprehend that the play date is off because you will be attending her funeral is just so surreal.

The day after Kim died, I got the call, I didn't believe it. I was visiting mom and ran to the corner store to get a paper, I saw the paper and screamed. I can't even remember how I got home. We had a play date scheduled for our kids, we talked on the phone a lot, next thing I know I am headed to a viewing, consoling a friend who was the first responder on the scene. I am blessed that Kim's sister and I talk on occasion and are able to share memories but at the same time, I wish she was still here.

I think about my graduation, how we all faced the future with the shiny expectancy of life. Some of us wanted to go to college, some of us just wanted to settle down. It makes you wonder how far in the future they dreamed. Did they dream of kids, of grand kids? Did they just take it 1 day at a time? Did anyone in my class ever look at someone thinking 'This is the last time I will see them.'?

God called them home in various ways; freak accidents, murder, health.. I try to justify that God was saving them from something horrendous then the realization that I don't know or think that most of them were Christians breaks my heart. If they knew that they only had a few months or years left, would they seek refuge in Him? I certainly hope so. I know, I didn't, but I am thankful that God didn't give up on me. Ever so thankful that God wouldn't let go and refused to allow me to skirt the edges and made me become who I am today, His work in progress.