Down the Rabbit Hole

Life is So Precious

This past week a friend from high school was killed in a car accident. Tracy and I had reconnected over the past two years, in a large part due to our twenty year reunion. Aided largely by Facebook, we kept contact after the event. After learning of her death, I've spent the last few days sifting through memories of her, remembering the person she was and counting the opportunities both shared and missed with her. She came to a candlelight party at my house where she mixed Rum and Cokes with my sister, her giddy laughter heard well above the din of the other ladies packed into my living room. Tracy repeatedly invited my family to events she thought my daughter would enjoy, like the Halloween party at her friend's horse barn. She always seemed to be liking and commenting on my pictures and posts. She was very kind and thoughtful..exactly the person I remembered from high school. Sometimes time does not change us but rather solidifies the good, genuine qualities we possess. She was one of those friends that appeared in your feeds on a regular basis even though the physical plans you might have had were very few and far between. She was present though, even if it was just a brief comment shared, sadly more one way than it should have been. This morning I got a reminder of her birthday...so very sad since tomorrow night I will be attending her call hours. Even more surreal, the invitation sitting in my event box to a multi-family yard sale she had organized this coming week, in preparation of her big move to Vegas. It hardly seems possible that this bubbly, friendly girl is gone, taken so unfairly before embarking on what promised to be an amazing new chapter in her life. Life is so precious...people say that but it really, truly is. Tomorrow night a group of us from high school have made plans to attend Tracy's service together. It is very poignant to find ourselves making plans to get together again over these circumstances, each of us thinking, "why haven't we done more to get together after our reunion like we said we would?" I feel the need, as I am sure they must, to make more effort in the future to spend time with these girls. These women are all remarkable women, women who are kind and genuine. They are more than just the faces of my youth, they are people I am both glad to know, and people I wish I knew better, just like Tracy. I think back to those invitations Tracy issued me, the ones I never took her up on and I am tragically sorry that I missed those moments to spend more time with her. In a recent email exchange, one of those girlfriends took the time to tell me that I was loved, that she was so happy we connected. It is so important to make time for things like that. Words and sentiments held back might never have a chance to be heard, to be received. Not one of us every knows how long we have and a tragedy like Tracy's untimely passing reminds us all of that ultimately truth.