It could be over just like that!

Snap! It's over. Never to breathe again.  How do you make sense of it? Why do some live on & others are cut down right now? And what do you do?

I learned today of the passing of a former schoolmate. He was only 42. He had just returned from an anniversary weekend with his sweetheart. He was living a charmed life in Hollywood. He died of heart failure. His parents have to bury him. I look at his pictures on Facebook & cannot imagine that the world won't get to see his beaming smile anymore. I weep for the world.

Jay was a soccer player when I was a soccer stat girl. Best job ever in high school! He and his best friend Kirk were inseparable. I remember the two of them smiling, joking, teasing, flirting with me awkwardly (awkward for all of us because we were just learning how) and basically being these bright bursts of joy & energy. They were so much fun to watch on the pitch as well. A lot of fun. It is bittersweet recalling these memories now because Jay has died.

I feel for those left behind as they grieve and work to heal their hearts. I cannot imagine the incredible emptiness & ache they are feeling along with pure shock & bewilderment.

Why? Why him? Why now?

I don't want to write a bunch of cliches as a means of making sense of it. Because you really can't.  What it does is make me pause, celebrate that for a few years I got to be in Jay's beam of energy, and be very thankful & grateful for my life every day. It reminds me to not take for granted those I love nor procrastinate making time to see them, talk to them, and/or write them. Because it could all be over, just like that.  Snap.