We move through our lives making connections, some that last a lifetime and some that seem to fade like an old Kodachrome snapshot. For me, Facebook means reconnecting threads long broken, but unless that person belongs to Facebook it's more difficult and in some instances comes just plain too late. I've had two such instances lately.

Only just this week I learned of the passing of a Sammamish High School classmate that I don't think I'd seen since graduation in 1969.  He was not a close friend, but was with someone of whom I have fond memories and also mostly lost contact with.  Mark Byrski was shy even in grade school and never did come to reunions.  This week I learned of his passing and despite the fact that we did not travel in the same circles really, I feel  thread from the weave of our shared childhood has one more hole in it.  At my age there are several holes and doubtless more to come.  Our In Memorium poster will have one more picture when we meet at Lake Sammamish this fall.

Several nights ago I dreamed of a couple with whom I'd lost touch back in the 1980s.  During the 1970s they had been a large part of the lives of my then husband and myself.  Father Sam Poulos baptized our daughter Amy and baptized and was godfather to our son Joshua, his wife godmother.  In my dream they were aged as they might be forty years later.  I recognized Dimitra immediately even though her hair was gray.  Fr. Sam was much thinner.  He was a jolly Friar Tuck sort of parish priest at the Church of the Assumption in Seattle.  Their adopted boys were roughly the same age as Amy and Josh and we traded parenting tips and baby clothes.

We were sad when Fr. Sam was reassigned to a California parish, but it was better for Dimi's health.  After their departure we had another son, but our connection with the parish seemed diminished and our lives were changing.  Soon we divorced.  A number of moves on both end of the snail mail trail meant that eventually even the Christmas cards stopped.  A lot of history water has flowed under the bridge and except when I glance at a montage of pictures of baby pictures of the children and see Fr. Sam and Dimi proudly holding Josh on his baptism day, I haven't thought much about them.  I always worried that my subsequent marriages would be a disappointment to them.  Now I am inclined to think I would be welcomed as an old friend to trade stories of our children.  But it's just plain too late.

When I awoke from this vivid dream of visiting with Fr. Sam and Dimi I went straight to the computer, determined to find them.  There was blessed little.  I found that Fr. Sam had been a parish priest in the San Francisco Diocese in the early 1980s.  That made sense.  They went to Pittsburg, CA, but it was too foggy there for Dimi and they moved on to Bakersfield which suited Dimi's health much better.

A little farther down my Google search was something I had not anticipated.  It was an obituary for Fr. Sam from 2010 in Maryland.  He'd been dead for five years. Undoubtedly he touched many lives in the last forty odd years with Dimi's quiet gentleness bringing grace to their impact on the congregations they served. 

Why I had my dream lately when I'd not even thought of them recently is a mystery.  As mysterious as the mind is.

It is one thing to believe that connections with someone can be reestablished, but it's quite another to know that that thread has been forever severed in this world.  I guess if there is a moral to the story it is to work hard at maintaining relationships.

Dealing with Death

I work at a suburban high school. Outsiders view our community as affluent. There are affluent people here, but mostly we're middle class with a certain amount of working poor. We are not that different from Columbine, CO.

It’s been several years since a student committed suicide, but our hiatus ended last night. It’s not for sure that this young man killed himself, but his body was found near the home he’d moved to in March in Packwood. Besides the sadness that accompanies the loss of someone who has not yet begun to live, there is also the fear that goes along with it. There’s the fear that the school won’t do enough to acknowledge the loss, but there’s also the fear of doing too much—creating more drama and making suicide look alluring for students struggling to deal with adolescence. The previous school administration chose to do nothing when we had suicides. I didn’t agree with that, but I’m not sure I know what would be appropriate. For today and because the death is an on-going investigation the administration decided to do nothing. It’s Friday of Memorial Weekend. By Tuesday they will have decided how best to deal with the situation.

Death seems to be stocking us at school as if budget cuts and lay-offs weren’t enough. We have a teacher whose wife is dying. I didn’t know until last week. This week a Bible appeared on his desk. He’s a nice man; quiet, with a dry sense of humor—a Baby Boomer who ought to be thinking about retirement and traveling with his wife. I don’t know him well, but my heart aches for him. The principal called a special staff meeting after school today. I assumed it was about the student, but if the teacher’s wife had died I didn’t want to know yet and I left at the end of my paid day. He wasn’t in school today and I’d overheard a small portion of an anxious conversation on his cell phone the day before. “Why’s he been coming to school?” a young teacher asked. “Maybe he needs something in his life that’s normal,” I said, remembering how important work was when my father was dying. “Besides, a sub isn’t going to be able to help the students. They’re supposed to launch their rockets next week.” No, a substitute for an aerospace teacher isn’t likely to be found on subonline. It’s not like it’s rocket science…but wait, it is. But mostly I think of him. Maybe we can have the students write condolence letters instead of sending their handmade rockets streaking into the sky. Maybe she isn’t dead. Maybe she’ll rally over the weekend.

The students and staff spend six plus hours a day together and although we are a family of 1,600, we are a family nonetheless. The ending of this school year isn’t as joyful as it ought to be. Our family will be smaller next year in many ways.