8.11.11

Snow fall in October...

It snowed on my birthday.  It was kind of nice, sitting at home, watching it fall on my car, and checking in on facebook of the electric glow of my friends' warm wishes.  Then the undercurrent hit.  Around noon, really.  A lot of the kids I knew from high school started posting things about "Ian".  I went to school with two of them - one I had known from childhood, and the other...well, I knew two versions of the other.

And it was the other one who had died.

I don't know the details beyond Ian, his friend Mike, and their car hitting a tree near where I went to middle school.  That's all I really know.

Here's the two Ian's I knew: High School and Slightly Post, and Mid-Twenties.

I fucking hated him in high school.  I say that without reservation - I didn't like him.  I know much of it was out of the same envy I felt towards anyone who seemed to mesh easily with others, who had that effortless effort about them when it came to inter-personal relationships.  But, more than that, dude just rubbed me the wrong way.

In our mutual mid-twenties I remet him a few times.  At bars.  Run ins at gas stations.  Maybe I had matured, or he had, or both of us.  I didn't know the shit he had gone through, same as he didn't know what I had gone through.  But we were civil.  Had we moved in similar circles, I suppose we could have become friends.

All that's as maybe.
The other Ian, my childhood friend, wrote about him as a friend.  I post the link to his writing here, and hope you'll take the time to read it.
I didn't know he was a teacher.

I hope he and Mike are at peace, wherever they are.  I hope the families and friends comes to terms.






Damn shame.