I received an unexpected email the other day. It was a brief notice from Saint Mary’s College of California where I earned my bachelor’s degree announcing that a classmate of mine had died. Mike was 60 or 61.
I dug out my old yearbook to make sure I was remembering correctly,
hoping that I had two classmates with the same name. His is a common Irish name, but no such luck. It was a small school, about 1,200 students, and I was right; it was him.
This shouldn’t surprise me. As an educator, I’ve had students die tragically in accidents or illness. Family members have passed on; both my parents are dead. This past winter, one of my colleagues at Southwest Minnesota State University died unexpectedly over Christmas Break. He was only 54 and in perfect health, but a stroke took him after a long flight to visit his mother.
So, hearing of Mike’s untimely passing wasn’t out of the realm of my
experience.
I opened my yearbook and glanced at the senior portraits. This was 1972, the height of the counter-cultural movement in California; thus, these portraits were informal. Turns out I took two of them, a fact I had forgotten. Both were casual snaps of two friends after a play performance. Saint Mary’s had an amphitheatre then; the play, The Birds by Aristophanes, was performed wearing masks the way it would have been in 414 BC when first produced. (If the times were counter-cultural, I hung with the counter-counter-cultural crowd. I believe the term today would be “nerds,” but that’s another blog post.)
I glanced at old friends with whom I have not spoken in years. Partly, this is because I moved away from California in 1978 and have not been back for any length of time since then. And once my Mother died in 2004, even my trips to family out there have been less frequent. In fact, since her passing, my family has met here in Marshall or in South Bend more regularly than out West.
But, excuses aside, I should have kept in better touch with old friends.
This past week, we drove to Chicago and Indianapolis to visit Marianne’s
family. Her uncle, Uncle Tom, a retired priest, suffers from advanced Parkinson’s. (He is affectionately, “Father Uncle Tom” or “UT”to his nieces and nephews.) Even with his tremors, his mind is sharp as ever. What
struck me during out visit was his knowledge of classmates from high school,
Notre Dame, and Indiana Law School that he remembers and keeps in touch
with. It’s a talent I lack.
Uncle Tom is able to do this in part because he was born and raised in
Indianapolis and except for four years at Notre Dame, two years stationed in
Japan with the US Army in the 50s, and his time in Rome at seminary, he has
lived his whole life there. On the other hand, I have packed up and re-rooted myself several times since I was 28, twice in Indiana, then Pennsylvania, and twenty-plus years ago, Minnesota. I move, time moves along, old friends are forgotten.
Glancing through the yearbook of 1972 the other night, I remembered every one of my classmates, even ones I did not know well at the time.
Several had a band, a retro group that in the early 1970s played 50s
music, their act complete with leather jackets and slicked-back hair. Instead of individual snaps of these guys, they did a band photo in their stage attire.
They were pretty good as a mock-rock band and actually ended up performing long after graduation. They made quite a name for themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area until a few years back. One or two years
ago they were up for a reprise gig when one of the members (another classmate) died unexpectedly.
I knew all these guys, but was never close to them, so the passing of one
of them didn’t hit me like Mike’s.
But it was the announcement of Mike’s death that led me to my long-unopened yearbook with grainy black and white photos. When I came upon the photos of close friends, I had to ask questions for which I don’t know the answers. One photo showed a recently-married couple. In this day and age, you have to ask at least mentally, are they still together? A few classmates had become lawyers. Still at it? I know from recent class notes on the
Saint Mary’s alumni homepage, that classmates who went into high school teaching right after graduation have been able to take early retirement through buy-out programs designed to retire higher-paid teachers. What are their second careers? Another classmate once lived in Canada. Still there?
It seems like I should know a few of these things, but I don’t.
The twists and turns of keeping in touch. And the odd ways that old
friends and acquaintances return to your life.
Soon after we were married, Marianne took a Notre Dame summer class.
The first day, she came home talking about her new classmates and
mentioned one by name, a Christian Brother out from California for a summer degree.
“Not Brother Edmund?” Could he be my Saint Mary’s classmate?
The next class meeting, Marianne put the Saint Mary’s Alumni Directory at Brother Edmund’s seat. When he came in, he glanced around the room. Zarzana is not a common name but when first introduced to Marianne he had not put the two together. He should have asked about a connection; it’s not a name like Murphy or Smith or Kelly.
Small worlds do exist.
On Saint Mary’s alumni webpage this past week, I found out Brother Edmund is now principal of a Christian Brothers high school in Berkeley, California. I’m a department chair; he’s a principal; a classmate is gone.
Time moves on.
This all made me realize yet again how important it is to cherish each day and each friend. I think this is one of life’s main messages, but daily routine can smother us so we forget it. We need to relearn it. And it takes a jolt to shove this message back into the forefront of our lives.
Take the sentence, “Life’s too short for. . .” and fill in the blank. Life’s too short for bad coffee or cheap wine. Life’s too short for putting up with this or that nonsense. Life’s too short for wasting on an unfulfilling career.
For some, life is just all too short, period.
When an obituary arrives out of the blue, making you realize how short life really can be, it’s time to remember and reconnect.
I hope you make time this summer for just that: connecting and
reconnecting with family, with friends, and with your own past.
I dug out my old yearbook to make sure I was remembering correctly,
hoping that I had two classmates with the same name. His is a common Irish name, but no such luck. It was a small school, about 1,200 students, and I was right; it was him.
This shouldn’t surprise me. As an educator, I’ve had students die tragically in accidents or illness. Family members have passed on; both my parents are dead. This past winter, one of my colleagues at Southwest Minnesota State University died unexpectedly over Christmas Break. He was only 54 and in perfect health, but a stroke took him after a long flight to visit his mother.
So, hearing of Mike’s untimely passing wasn’t out of the realm of my
experience.
I opened my yearbook and glanced at the senior portraits. This was 1972, the height of the counter-cultural movement in California; thus, these portraits were informal. Turns out I took two of them, a fact I had forgotten. Both were casual snaps of two friends after a play performance. Saint Mary’s had an amphitheatre then; the play, The Birds by Aristophanes, was performed wearing masks the way it would have been in 414 BC when first produced. (If the times were counter-cultural, I hung with the counter-counter-cultural crowd. I believe the term today would be “nerds,” but that’s another blog post.)
I glanced at old friends with whom I have not spoken in years. Partly, this is because I moved away from California in 1978 and have not been back for any length of time since then. And once my Mother died in 2004, even my trips to family out there have been less frequent. In fact, since her passing, my family has met here in Marshall or in South Bend more regularly than out West.
But, excuses aside, I should have kept in better touch with old friends.
This past week, we drove to Chicago and Indianapolis to visit Marianne’s
family. Her uncle, Uncle Tom, a retired priest, suffers from advanced Parkinson’s. (He is affectionately, “Father Uncle Tom” or “UT”to his nieces and nephews.) Even with his tremors, his mind is sharp as ever. What
struck me during out visit was his knowledge of classmates from high school,
Notre Dame, and Indiana Law School that he remembers and keeps in touch
with. It’s a talent I lack.
Uncle Tom is able to do this in part because he was born and raised in
Indianapolis and except for four years at Notre Dame, two years stationed in
Japan with the US Army in the 50s, and his time in Rome at seminary, he has
lived his whole life there. On the other hand, I have packed up and re-rooted myself several times since I was 28, twice in Indiana, then Pennsylvania, and twenty-plus years ago, Minnesota. I move, time moves along, old friends are forgotten.
Glancing through the yearbook of 1972 the other night, I remembered every one of my classmates, even ones I did not know well at the time.
Several had a band, a retro group that in the early 1970s played 50s
music, their act complete with leather jackets and slicked-back hair. Instead of individual snaps of these guys, they did a band photo in their stage attire.
They were pretty good as a mock-rock band and actually ended up performing long after graduation. They made quite a name for themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area until a few years back. One or two years
ago they were up for a reprise gig when one of the members (another classmate) died unexpectedly.
I knew all these guys, but was never close to them, so the passing of one
of them didn’t hit me like Mike’s.
But it was the announcement of Mike’s death that led me to my long-unopened yearbook with grainy black and white photos. When I came upon the photos of close friends, I had to ask questions for which I don’t know the answers. One photo showed a recently-married couple. In this day and age, you have to ask at least mentally, are they still together? A few classmates had become lawyers. Still at it? I know from recent class notes on the
Saint Mary’s alumni homepage, that classmates who went into high school teaching right after graduation have been able to take early retirement through buy-out programs designed to retire higher-paid teachers. What are their second careers? Another classmate once lived in Canada. Still there?
It seems like I should know a few of these things, but I don’t.
The twists and turns of keeping in touch. And the odd ways that old
friends and acquaintances return to your life.
Soon after we were married, Marianne took a Notre Dame summer class.
The first day, she came home talking about her new classmates and
mentioned one by name, a Christian Brother out from California for a summer degree.
“Not Brother Edmund?” Could he be my Saint Mary’s classmate?
The next class meeting, Marianne put the Saint Mary’s Alumni Directory at Brother Edmund’s seat. When he came in, he glanced around the room. Zarzana is not a common name but when first introduced to Marianne he had not put the two together. He should have asked about a connection; it’s not a name like Murphy or Smith or Kelly.
Small worlds do exist.
On Saint Mary’s alumni webpage this past week, I found out Brother Edmund is now principal of a Christian Brothers high school in Berkeley, California. I’m a department chair; he’s a principal; a classmate is gone.
Time moves on.
This all made me realize yet again how important it is to cherish each day and each friend. I think this is one of life’s main messages, but daily routine can smother us so we forget it. We need to relearn it. And it takes a jolt to shove this message back into the forefront of our lives.
Take the sentence, “Life’s too short for. . .” and fill in the blank. Life’s too short for bad coffee or cheap wine. Life’s too short for putting up with this or that nonsense. Life’s too short for wasting on an unfulfilling career.
For some, life is just all too short, period.
When an obituary arrives out of the blue, making you realize how short life really can be, it’s time to remember and reconnect.
I hope you make time this summer for just that: connecting and
reconnecting with family, with friends, and with your own past.
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