He implied that he didn't want many details released, but I assume I'm safe to say that one of my closest friends has undergone a great loss in the past 24 hours. He has just called me to inform me as such, and immediately after I got off the phone with him, I informed my parents that I would most likely be missing school for the funeral and then began to wander around the house, dumbstruck, wondering exactly who I should be calling. I felt that I needed support...someone to make me strong again so that I would be able to be strong for him. The idea of death, especially someone we know, even indirectly or only semi-personally, is generally something that reminds us of our own mortality, or, in my case, our parents'. I do not know what would happen to me right now if my father or mother were taken from me...my mother leaving me with my father or my father leaving me with years of unresolved hurt to grow with. I strain to think of any other adults I could not live without- Mr. Ladd. He easily might have died in an car accident he was in the summer before last, anything could happen to him at any time, and I would have never seen him again. I think about the possibility of Jeff dying all the time, though I've never spent any real amount of time considering any of my other close friend's deaths...I guess I shouldn't right now. At any rate, I walked around stricken and thought of who to call. For some reason, my first instinct was Andrew...it's been a long time since he was my first instinct, I guess the break up has been refreshing for me in some ways. I got an entirely disturbing halloween answering machine message...or what I can only hope was a halloween answering machine mesage. I continued to wonder. Ben, Chad and Nick were probably at Chad's or doing any of the various other things they do, and besides, it would have felt weird to go to them. Piled on top of the fact that none of them, with the possible exception of Nick, would know what to do or say at all (not that anyone really would, least of all me to him -the original him- when he informed me), they're fairly new friends and, however much they do mean to me, times like these seem to beg for warn-in friends, people for whom your love is rooted.

The idea of rooted love immediately takes me to Jeremey, the person in the world I love most immediately, the person for whom my adoration is most instinctual. He is my oldest close friend, though I should stop referring to him that way, and no one, let alone me, has any concept of what has been allowed to be lost in his ostensible decision to no longer speak to me. This seems to be the perfect oppurtunity to come to the realization that nothing is worth losing him, but I wonder if, at a time like this in my life, it would take more of my waning strength to lose him or to go through how it feels every time he neglects or rejects me.

Emily came to mind next. At first it was that she's in Boston, then I realized that was unimportant, then I realized she's out anyway. Elorza...I need someone who's voice can comfort me, and I don't know his voice, not really, only his screenname. I didn't try Jeff, but I'm going to assume he isn't home, as it is a friday night and he has many friends to pack into his weekend excursions here. He doesn't seem like the person to go to anyway. Jenn's working, I considered her, and all my old friends are in college or here but just that- old friends. People to whom I no longer flee for things like this, or anything really, except the surface stuff....

Once again, I'm left with this. It feels like I should have family right now....it feels, right now, like there are a lot of times I probably should. Is there a person in this country that doesn't secretly long for the Full House paradise, deep down inside in a place they deny to themselves and everyone? Is there anyone aroudn that doesn't wonder where family values went, doesn't question why things are the way they are, doesm't stop to think if they deserve this?

And before you've realized what needs to be done, said, fixed, worked out, before you know who needs to hear that you love them, and before you understand why you need to know that they love you, things happen. People die.

Perhaps I should have just stayed on the phone with him. I've always known, whether or not I chose to take advantage of it, that he would have done anything he could to help me through my things. I'll do anything I can to help him through this. I love him. I love most of you, you know that?

On with it.