No Longer Exists

I called Mother from a cab on Friday night, after visiting a coworker who is in the hospital. I was calling to tell her that D and I had spontaneously decided to go to Chicago, and that I'd be leaving the following morning at the crack of dawn.

I don't know why I was calling. I guess I wanted to make sure that she had ample opportunity to worry about the flight. Additionally, it would be weird to talk to her this week and to tell her about my weekend. I think she would feel left out not knowing that I was taking an unplanned vacation.

While we were talking, she said "Oh, I keep forgetting to ask you, did you know this guy MF?"

"Yes."

MF was somebody I went to middle and high schools with. He was a nice guy. He wore a baseball cap all the time. He had small eyes. He wasn't in my classes or in my group of friends, but he was around. I knew him. You know everyone in a small town, especially when your class size is 108 people. I hadn't thought about him since high school.

"He died."

"WHAT!?!?"

"They mentioned it in church and then I read his obituary in the paper. He apparently was living in Franklin, alone, his parents still live in Medway, and he lost his battle with a long illness."

I thought about MF all night.

It is weird to hear your Mother mention the obituary of someone your own age, who you knew, who was part of your life every single day for seven years, who no longer exists.

It is weird because I didn't even realize I had any neurons associated with MF, but the minute she said "he died" I crumbled.

Freak accidents are one thing, but illnesses? I kept thinking of MF battling cancer all by himself in his condo, unable to marry or have a girlfriend because he felt too bad about it. I thought of him with some sort of weird blood disease, painful and isolating. I thought of him decaying. What kind of illnesses do 30 year old people die from other than cancer? I don't even know.

I told D about it. I said "Someone from my class died. This is so weird. My heart is broken and I don't know why." I told him that Mother read his obituary in the newspaper.

"Does your mother make a habit of reading obituaries?"

"No, she probably just saw it because it said Medway or because it said he was 30 years old. She probably thought of me, because I'm 30 years old." And I'd just called to tell her I was getting on a plane which, of course, freaks Mother out.

"I wonder if he's a 'beloved c-nt,'" D said, referencing my favorite episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm wherein Larry David's friend prints an obituary for Cheryl's aunt, and accidentally mispells "aunt." Ah, such a good episode, but being mentioned at such an inappropriate time.

"Dude, he's dead," I said. "This is serious," I said, evoking our new relationship policy wherein I say "this is serious" when I want D to take what I am saying seriously and not make jokes or deflect the topic.

I appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood, and it's not like MF was a good friend of mine. D had no reason to think that I was traumatized.

But I was, of course, because I am me, and have too many feelings.

Wierd, though. I keep thinking about it every now and then, and I just can't even grasp what I'm thinking. Obituary for someone I went to middle school with. Weird.