Life Lesson

That Monday I may never forget. It seemed so damn normal. I had come to school as usual, slept through sociology as usual, and gone down to lift during second period study. But God decided to throw in a monkey wrench that Monday. After I finished a set I came into the locker room to change. Curt was there, as usual, but he had an unusual purpose. It was there that he informed me that J's mom had died. Mrs. S. was always the best; there's no way that happened. She had always been the coolest when we hung out there. I felt so sorry for him. It just seemed like we'd have to give him extra support from now on, like give him rides and invite him over for dinner, but it wasn't that easy either.

J's parents are divorced; his dad had recently been remarried. Unfortunately he lived far away from here, around Detroit I think. J's dad wanted him to move out there with him because that's where most of his family is from. Instead of having to just help J there would virtually be no J. He would be gone; there was nothing that could be done.

Later that day at football we had a meeting to talk about everything. J and I were supposed to be the cornerstones of our class. We were the twin towers or the bash brothers that were going to anchor the line our senior year all the way to a state championship. All that was gone. There would no longer be link between us two. The countless times our names got switched by the coaches. "Sven and Denn" were nothing special anymore. Even though I wasn't his best friend we had a bond formed from trying to knock the be-Jesus out of each other just to see who was better. We were supposed to grow from big guys to bigger guys together, we were gonna be so nasty.

That Wednesday I attended the wake. I haven't seen that many people for a wake ever. The small funeral home looked as if it was gonna bust out of its walls. There was a real long service, none of which I heard cause I was in the back. I would just look into the people's eyes and faces and try to understand more about what happened. None of them helped me. Though many of the people were there to give their respects, more were there to see J. He had gotten better, I guess if you can consider that better. It'd be like comparing falling from a 100 story building and a 90 story building. Both are horrible but if it were me I'd rather have the lesser. I hope he can hold up. He's a big guy but definitely an emotional one, too. If this was the only thing I learned from him it was that everything could change in a sec. Earlier that Saturday when she died, we had just won a football game and we were on top of the world. I guess when you're on top you can go down, real fast.