Day 320

I am still reeling from the happiness of Don't Ask Don't Tell being repealed.

This means that I can actually be there when she gets back from deployment! This means that she and I can live together without eyebrows being raised! This means that I can be included in on all the functions she has to go to!

This means that I don't have be some dirty little secret.

This means that I can have her fully in my life, and that I can be fully in hers.

And that makes me so, so, so happy.

In other news - because my gushing happiness shouldn't be the only topic two days in a row - I got nostalgic yesterday.

At my job, every day I have to call appointments two days ahead and confirm that they are actually going to show up. This is the most boring part of the job, because 50% of the time it takes is spent listening to the phone ring. Sometimes I play Solitaire to pass the time, but yesterday I spent the time browsing through old emails.

I came across all the emails of articles that I sent to my old home-town's newspaper. I used to write a column about school news, among other things. I was basically the newspaper's blogger and part-time reporter.

This one particular article was about a recent loss our school had suffered. A senior had died, and I wrote about it in my column. Reading over this story again, the memories made me get misty-eyed.

I learned a lot through this article, and not only because this is the only time I've gotten hate mail over something I've written. I guess my honesty rankled with the family, and I got a nasty letter from his father. I wonder where that letter is...

RHS News by Kindle Rouse

It was just recently that Mrs. Bridget Smith left Riverside, but, this past week, RHS experienced a more stunning loss: that of the senior, Brandon Spoon. The news spread like wildfire throughout the school, and now it's said that there's a curse on the school, that every year somebody dies, starting with Zeke Wallace all the way to Brandon Spoon. Each death sends pangs of sorrow and terror through us all - sorrow for the loss of life and terror at the realization that our own lives are too so fragile.

I like to believe that everything has a reason - a purpose - even in cases like this, when the death seems to be so random. Scott Wooley, who was driving, and Spoon were headed back from Perry County, where they had been getting applications for jobs, and Wooley lost control of the car, veered off the road, and crashed into the wall of the bridge while trying to correct the car's position. I somewhat reliably heard that it was because of a malfunction of the car, but I have also heard other things, so I won't presume to know what really happened. Wooley did say, though, that, in the mere seconds after the crash, he remembers Spoon looking up at him and smiling. ...I don't believe I even have to words to describe how that affects me, and certainly not for how it affects Wooley, for perhaps it's something that has no use
for words.

I simply can't imagine how Wooley must feel, but I know that I feel horribly, not just for his death, but for how I treated him in life. I'm ashamed to say that I was never the friend I could have been to him; I never cared to try. Even more, I hate that it took him dying to realize that I had been a snob. I hate that it was my guilt and regret that spurred me to visit his body. I hate that, except for his true friends, this was how the whole school reacted. He was not a bad person, not by any means, and he always tried to be a friend to everyone, so why does this happen? The teachers, friends, and family did what they could; an enormous amount of students visited him on Monday, April 11; but this doesn't seem like enough. Everyone felt his death, everyone lost something when they heard, but it seemed like everyone got on with their lives so quickly. Shouldn't tragedies such as this be a constant source of emotion and inspiration? In my mind, Spoon's death was no less tragic than even that of the Pope's, because Spoon didn't have the chances - the experiences - the life that the
Pope was able to have.

I don't know what else to say, except that I have such regret and that the parking space next to mine is too empty now. His passing has taught me a deep lesson, one that I only hope is shared by others, and for that I am eternally grateful to Spoon. So, until later, Sayonara, Brandon-kun.