Mortality 101

Out of the blue this weekend, my mind drifted towards a boy I went to high school with who was the first peer of mine to die unexpectedly. You always remember the first time something like this happens to you regardless of how close you were to them, when death casts its influence and refuses to go away.

What triggered it was a random conversation I had with a stranger at the ATM. I was waiting for my turn and got to talking to an older gentleman. The whole time I kept asking myself if I knew this fellow, wondered if maybe I'd spoken to him before. He was the sort of older guy I adore, the type who, despite his age, retains a touch of youth-as though the boy in him were still visible. The more time we spent gabbing the younger he became, until the transformation was complete, and he became someone else: Andre, that now-dead-boy from my past.

As maudlin as it sounds, I was elated that this had happened to me, on an ordinary Sunday, that an out-of-the-blue conversation could magically transform itself into an extraordinary event. I have always been drawn to footprints.