Going forward

Tonight I was looking online for a couple I knew eight years ago, when I lived in the southwest. I located her Facebook page, and at the bottom was a like for a boy, Logan, who had been friends with my son. I looked him up, and found his page was a memorial. Logan died in 2009. He was in sixth grade.

This happened years ago, yet I never knew. I liked him and his family, and now there's a flag on my memories of him. I didn't expect anything this dramatic when I looked at his Facebook page. When I moved, I put all those people behind me. It sounds callous, but I never stayed in touch. It seemed...finished, somehow. Now it's years later and the people I largely put behind me are still back there.

I knew that you can't go home again; trying that just brings sorrow. But I never expected that simply looking back carried the same risk. I need to look forward now. Logan's gone and I can't bring him back. I can only look forward and move forward.