My friend, the Editor

Yesterday, in the middle of a regular, innocuous Tuesday, I got a Facebook notification that a high school friend had mentioned me in a comment.  I clicked over to find that she had tagged me on the thread of another high school friend.  The original post was cryptic, yet obvious at the same time.  It turned out to be his final goodbye, as we soon found out.  He took his own life at the age of 38.

My friend, Brian, was a close friend all throughout high school.  I first met him my freshman year, most likely the first day.  Our last names being Dubbs and Edmison, we were pretty close in the alphabetical lineup.  I think only Tri Duong ever separated the two of us in the roll book.  In addition to that, our schedules aligned similarly: we were both signed up for Spanish II, GT English, GT History, and Journalism I - four out of six classes together.  He had just moved into the school district the previous summer and didn't know anyone.  I was coming in with the rest of my jr high classmates, but my friends were scattered among the larger crowds of high school and very few were in classes with me.  So we became friends.

Journalism, however, was where our friendship really developed.  Once you got past Journalism I, you became part of the newspaper staff.  It was the last period of the day, and the most relaxed.  The staff was small, no more than a dozen, and we spent hours and hours working together.  Well, the ten days before an issue was published, we spent hours and hours working.  The rest of the time, we spent hours and hours goofing around.

High school, to me, was not something I overtly enjoyed.  I didn't attend many football games or participate in extracurriculars other than the newspaper.  I was never a big crowd kind of girl.  But in the small circle of people on the staff, I shone.  My fondest memories of high school in general revolve around that back room where we wrote our stories, typed them up on that huge, ancient copywriter, pieced together the layout, and thought up headlines.  For three years, we poured our lives into the paper and into each other.

I think all of us on the staff, to some degree, fit in so well together because we didn't necessarily have a fit elsewhere.  We were a silly bunch, to be sure.  We gave out ridiculous nicknames, we rubber cemented a Bianca can to the wall, we examined our student teacher's lunch when he wasn't around and kept track of what his wife packed for him, we were crazy about holiday border tape, we ran to Taco Bell on press nights....all silly, teenage stuff that we laughed uproariously at, while Brian shook his head at us.  But he always laughed in the end.

Our junior and senior year, Brian was the Editor-in-Chief.  I held the title of Features Editor, and two others from our Journalism I class took Sports Editor and News Editor.  We ruled the roost.  Brian was a great editor; he had a knack for reporting and was great at jumpstarting my thought process when I couldn't get a story started.  I never once turned an article in on time; he had a soft spot for me and I exploited it endlessly when deadlines came up.

The evening of graduation was the last I saw of him for ten years.  I was ready to be done with high school and move on with my life.  We lined up alphabetically (Duong, Tri still separating us); it was a hot, humid sticky night where the looming threat of rain forced the ceremony inside the cramped gymnasium.  We sat through the entirety of the speakers.  I kept whispering that I was walking off the stage and out the door once I got my diploma.  He kept whispering back that I wasn't.  Finally, it was over.  The class was asked to stand, pronounced official graduates, and I looked at him.  He knew I didn't want to lose my cap when we all tossed them in the air. Wordlessly,  he passed his to me.  That's the one I threw.

Those were the days before email and Facebook made connecting so easy.  We lost track of each other until our ten year reunion.  He sidled up to me and put his arm around my shoulders.  I didn't even recognize him until I saw his nametag.  I remember laughing as we recounted memories of our glory days.  A few years later, Facebook opened their ranks to the masses and we friended each other.  I watched the pictures of his new home being built and congratulated him on the news that his wife was pregnant.  At some point, my right leaning sensibilities and his left leaning opinions led to an unpleasant exchange and he unfriended me.  I just rolled my eyes and thought that if he didn't want to be friends, I wasn't going to chase after him.

I'm sad that Brian is gone.  I'm sad that his wife, young daughter, and teenaged son are hurting.  I'm sad that he felt that this was the only option.  I'm sad that I didn't pursue our friendship.  I'm sad that I won't be able to reminisce with him at our twenty year reunion, or our twenty-fifth, or our thirtieth, or any more.  I'm just horribly sad.

In his final note, he said something about the past 30 years leading to this moment.  This is the saddest of all to me in this whole sad mess.  I wish I knew he felt this way.  I wish I realized he was hurting back when we were friends.  Teenagers are so self-absorbed; they walk around thinking their own problems are the biggest, often not realizing that their friends beside them are dealing with problems as well.  And sadly, we adults can be the same way.  We're more sophisticated about it, more subtle about focusing on ourselves.  But all around us, people hurt.  Friends are broken hearted, hopeless, hurting.  It doesn't take much to see, if we take the time to look.

I think Brian was happy in the time that I knew him.  I think that he had dark times that I didn't know about as well, but I think that the years spent on the newspaper staff were good ones.  They certainly were fun.  They were what got me through high school, and really, I believe, him too.  In the midst of the swirling cauldron of adolescence, we found our niche.  And we found some friends.