Fragility of Life

This has been an upside down kind of week.  I had several blogs rattling around in the back of my mind, but events of the week changed those thoughts entirely.  The fragility of life intervened this week and so I feel I must write about this instead.

Several months ago, I was able to reconnect with a friend of mine from high school.  He sat behind me in my U.S. History class and I'm pretty sure I'd met him in junior high.  I hadn't seen him since our ten year reunion, the last one I attended, but when I noticed his name show up on Facebook, I didn't hesitate to add Richard as a friend of mine.

During the next two months, I found myself interacting with Richard several times.  He had become a fan of Sleeping in Tents, a blog site dedicated to tent camping.  I found the site interesting and looked over some of the entries, liked what I saw and figured that I might as well become a fan as well.  During this same time period, I discovered that he'd recently gotten married to my high school physics lab partner.  The two of them were two of the nicest people I was acquainted with in high school.

Unfortunately, this blog does not have a very happy ending.  Richard passed away this past Monday of a heart attack.  Just last week, he'd been responding to one of my posts.  Now, he's gone.  Today, I mourn for his wife and for his memory.  Although we hadn't been reconnected for very long, I know I shall miss him.  Thank you for the short time we had Richard.