In Memoriam

Four years ago today I had my first college class. It was Beginning Italian, taught by a woman from Milan who was only at SLC for a year-- she gave birth to a son, Orsino (she was a GIGANTIC Shakespeare fan, I think it's why she made a career out of English in the first place) a couple months after the academic year ended.

Of course, the memory is so vivid because a couple of hours before I went to class, I was waiting outside McCracken for the bookstore to open, and there was something on the gatehouse radio about a plane crashing into the Trade Center, and when I got out of class, everybody was freaking out about more planes crashing into what seemed like, at the time, every damn major US building, and you all know the rest.

I've never lost anybody I cared about, in a way that meant he or she was central to my life. My grandfather and aunts, the only family members I've had die, were occasional presences whose absence didn't really make much of an impression on me, because I didn't really know them any better than most casual acquaintances, and certainly not as well as my friends.

When I was a sophomore at SLC, a guy I knew and with whom I was on the JCL state and national certamen team with in high school committed suicide. He wasn't my best friend, of course-- three years' difference in age is still a big deal, at that point in the academic life-cycle-- but we'd shared some fairly significant time, not to mention personal triumphs, and it still saddens me today that he's not around anymore. He was, without a doubt, one of the smartest people I've ever met, and not in that static bookish way, either, or at least not just that; he had a wit so sharp you could open a vein with it, and he was... thoughtful, in a way that I've realized is exceptionally rare, in this world. His environment is much the poorer for his absence.

One of the few regrets I have about the past is that I couldn't afford to take time off of school and fly back for his funeral, so I could say something like I wrote above. I'm sure someone did, or similar, but I would have liked to make sure the imago he left was as... complete... as possible.

His memory is what I summon when I look at footage from terrorist attacks, or natural disasters, and search for some sort of reaction besides weary disappointment. It's one of the few things I have that reminds me that sometimes, even I can care.

In Memoriam

Four years ago today I had my first college class. It was Beginning Italian, taught by a woman from Milan who was only at SLC for a year-- she gave birth to a son, Orsino (she was a GIGANTIC Shakespeare fan, I think it's why she made a career out of English in the first place) a couple months after the academic year ended.

Of course, the memory is so vivid because a couple of hours before I went to class, I was waiting outside McCracken for the bookstore to open, and there was something on the gatehouse radio about a plane crashing into the Trade Center, and when I got out of class, everybody was freaking out about more planes crashing into what seemed like, at the time, every damn major US building, and you all know the rest.

I've never lost anybody I cared about, in a way that meant he or she was central to my life. My grandfather and aunts, the only family members I've had die, were occasional presences whose absence didn't really make much of an impression on me, because I didn't really know them any better than most casual acquaintances, and certainly not as well as my friends.

When I was a sophomore at SLC, a guy I knew and with whom I was on the JCL state and national certamen team with in high school committed suicide. He wasn't my best friend, of course-- three years' difference in age is still a big deal, at that point in the academic life-cycle-- but we'd shared some fairly significant time, not to mention personal triumphs, and it still saddens me today that he's not around anymore. He was, without a doubt, one of the smartest people I've ever met, and not in that static bookish way, either, or at least not just that; he had a wit so sharp you could open a vein with it, and he was... thoughtful, in a way that I've realized is exceptionally rare, in this world. His environment is much the poorer for his absence.

One of the few regrets I have about the past is that I couldn't afford to take time off of school and fly back for his funeral, so I could say something like I wrote above. I'm sure someone did, or similar, but I would have liked to make sure the imago he left was as... complete... as possible.

His memory is what I summon when I look at footage from terrorist attacks, or natural disasters, and search for some sort of reaction besides weary disappointment. It's one of the few things I have that reminds me that sometimes, even I can care.