Everyone Always Goes Away

You really don’t notice it when you are young. 

It starts when you are in grammar school.  You spend multiple grades with the same friends.  You may even have friends in the local neighborhood.  Sometimes they move away and you lose track of them.

You graduate to high school and some of your friends from grammar school are not in the same high school.  You lose track of them.  However, you find new friends.

You graduate high school and head off to college.  While most of your friends came with you into high school, this is different.  Your friends spread out all across the country.  You keep in touch with some and lose track of some.  Even more extreme, one or two friends go to the same college with you.  They have different majors and you lose track of them.

You graduate college.  You start a job, get to know people, then you hop to the next job and somehow never keep up with former coworkers.  But, there are now new coworkers.

All the while, your family is aging.  Your grandparents passed away a few years ago.  Your father passes away and your mother is in a facility.  No longer is it ‘not keeping track’ of someone.  They are really gone from your life.

The years go by quickly.  Your kids grow up and move away.  Some of them keep touch.  Some don’t.

Then one of your friends passes away.  Then you realize they passed away several years ago and you never knew it.

Somehow, now, in your old age, you feel that there is no one to replace them.

This is the time of year when thoughts turn to those who have left your life.  With the internet, it is much easier to find those who you’ve lost track of.  You can contact them and remember old times.

Or…you just check them off the list.