For My Departed Friend

Bob's Geometric Print with Water Color Pencil

Dear Bob,

It is Christmas day and we are on our way to Kentucky to see my in-laws. This holiday is surreal for me. I found out 2 days ago that you were killed in a car crash. You were on your way home to your parents. It was your birthday. Your turned 42. Your step father told me that you were 5 miles away from home and an oncoming car went over the grass median and hit you. He said you passed instantly from internal injuries.

Jody said she was on your FB page to wish you a happy birthday. She scrolled through until she saw posts about you no longer being with us. I trust Jody. There was no way she could have been lying but I did not believe her. I called your phone. When your step dad picked up, I called out your name in relief but it wasn’t you. I told him I called to make sure something I had heard about you wasn’t true but it was true. Your step dad told me as gently as possible. He told me they had no way of reaching your employer and asked for help.

I had to think about how I could help. Eventually, I reached out to your Facebook contacts. Someone told me they put your dad in touch with the appropriate person from West Chester University.

I called Kelly to let her know. Like me, we both got wrapped up in getting married, me having a son and changing our careers. We all lost touch.

Meet the Storm Chaser

The relationship I had before I got married obviously did not work out. We were a match in some ways. I wanted to be a triathlete and he was one. We were both horribly immature, sometimes we had similar humor. I thought he was really funny. We were also both horribly anxious and that might be all we had in common. By then I had a long standing relationship with Lexapro and a licensed therapist so my issues were under control-ish. He would show up at my door sometimes at ungodly hours and want to fall asleep next to me. I would never know why but I must have given him some measure of comfort, at least more sleep. We weren’t perfect and in many ways we were the perfect storm. I thought maybe our mutual issues with anxiety would ally us against it but it was the opposite. I want to stress that this was just the relationship part of us.

What might interest you was that he worked for a company that provided a service for the government. He was not a government employee but the government had cleared him to do their work.  He once told me that in order to obtain such clearance; his friends and family were interviewed.

So what are the chances an intelligent, neurotic, triathlete would date one our 11 million?  I don’t know. The same stupid luck that a woman at the DMV in New York would think the Philippines was a part of Puerto Rico after seeing my birth certificate.  Karma works in mysterious ways.