A Brief Intermission

“There is no full post this week.”

I’m not even going to bother posting this on Facebook when it goes live on Tuesday, but if you get the blog notifications or you happen to check my blog regularly, well, here’s this week’s post. It’s not really a real post, because I don’t have the heart to put something together this week, even though I actually have material ready this time.

I found out today (“today” being the day I’m writing this, Monday the 23rd) that I’ve lost another friend. Like before, they were my age. I met them in university. I didn’t know them particularly well, but I liked them well enough and they seemed like a really good person. Again, I don’t think it’s my place to eulogize them here, or discuss their passing itself at length, so I’ll just say a few words in remembrance.

I knew them from Students for Environmental Concerns, and although they were a few years younger than me, I realized quickly that they were a person that was going to stick around. They were always kind, friendly, and got along really well with everyone else. They contributed to the club more than I realized, and to their community beyond that in other ways that I never witnessed. Although I did not know them well, I had several friends who did, and those friends knew this person to be a stellar human being, someone who would give selflessly and always stick up for what was right. They’re someone who, once again, I wish I had gotten to know better, but frankly, covid hit not long after they got to SECS, and I never really took the time to get to know them better. Which is a damn shame, and I’m sorry for that.

I’m glad that I got to know her for what time I did, though, and I felt that she was someone that SECS, as a club, could instinctually trust with any task or activity. She was reliable and consistent and a shining face on zoom meetings, the few campouts and events before the pandemic hit, and a handful of in-person ones later that I attended. Now there is nothing left for me to do but mourn her loss, and recognize her for the kind of pillar that she was, and empathize with those who knew her better than I.

It was inconceivable to me that people my age could die just like anybody else, but now, having lost three friends in the last year or so (the third being someone I never even mentioned on here, unfortunately), it is shocking to me that these things can happen so easily. My entire sphere of extended family and friends scraped through the pandemic without a single death that I know of, but somehow, it seems, life goes on and ends in other ways, too. That was something that I had forgotten, I guess.

I feel bad that this little post, even in the parts that are a sort of memorial, don’t match the descriptions that I gave to my other friend. Sure, perhaps I knew that other friend a little better than this person, but it feels like a disservice to leave it on just this. So here’s a small story of what happened to me today, when I found out.

I had just gotten off of a lake from canoeing practice for my new job (I did find a new one, and a permanent one at that), and Cheyenne called me and told me the news. She wanted me to hear it from her before I saw it somewhere else, like on Facebook, and I appreciate that immensely. She had to go to work then, so I just sat quietly and thought for a minute. I tried to find some old photos of her on my phone, from SECS events that I thought I remembered her being at, but I was, disappointingly, unsuccessful until much later. I put my head in my hands and leaned on a table.

One of my coworkers came up to me and asked if I was alright. This poor man, I’ve known him for about three weeks now, and I just kind of said what had happened. I don’t know what I was thinking, really. I mean, this guy barely knows me, and I barely know him. But he sighed and took a few minutes to sit down with me. He gave me his condolences and suggested that I take some time to remember and hold her memories close, as it were. I’m glad he took a few minutes to talk to me, though. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers, and all that.

But as he was talking, a small spider crawled up onto the table we were at. It was spinning threads of silk off into the air, trying to do… something. The strings kept getting caught in the wind and landing on my coworker’s arm, not that he noticed. But this cute little fuzzy critter kept trying, and kept trying, and kept trying to do what it knew it had to. And, eventually, something caught, because one of the silk strands got picked up in the wind, and the spider was, very gently, lifted off the table by those gusts of air. Slowly, carefully, it floated off into the breeze, legs clinging firmly and strongly to a hot air balloon I couldn’t see. I watched it for as long as I could before, just as silently as it had climbed up the table, it disappeared into the sunlight and I couldn’t pick it out in the air from the lake in the background. And it was gone, and I thought to myself, huh, she might have liked that.

So for this week, I’m holding a bit of silence from my usual mutterings and ramblings. I don’t process these emotions well, so I’ll mourn her in my own small way. I have to keep reminding myself that whatever I’m feeling is valid. But whatever other folks are feeling must be much, much worse. And I’m sorry there’s nothing more than can be done about it.

If, somehow, you’re someone from SECS or, more likely, an SECS alumnus, and this is the first time you’re hearing about anyone’s passing and you’re confused, please feel free to reach out to me or any of the other SECS folks you know. Otherwise, thanks for giving me space this week. I’m hoping to give everyone else some space, too.