My friend is dead. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and we didn’t always get along when we did, but he was a friend. He features prominently in my memories, of a certain time in my life. Throughout high school we were a large (though tight knit) group…a merry band of misfits that existed as an extended family of sorts, all of us wrapped up in each other’s lives. Many have since gone their separate ways, but during those formative years we all had an impact on one another. And now we number one less. Though this isn’t our first loss. First my brother lost his battle with leukemia. Then Jen had an aneurysm. More recently we lost Chris. And now one of his best friends, Josh, has died in a car accident. I’ll be attending the memorial service on Thursday. Matters that had been weighing on my mind seem trivial now.