Time Tramples

Apparently time doesn't pause for anything or anyone. The 24 hours of the day just keep coming like a freight train with no regard for what stands in the way of the track or who is noticing. And I guess if it didn't, there'd be no life to live for all the stops along the way. It's just the way of it.

I decided to join a group that notifies me when a classmate has been lost to circumstance and no longer makes memories with us. I saw a name there who was in life of very little importance to me as we really didn't cross each other often. But seeing his name amongst the list of people gone really hit home for me.

I didn't graduate with my class as I would have liked to. Unknowingly, I had an eye exam with Dr. White on the day of his son's graduation - the same day I would have graduated myself. I remember seeing the pride on his face and the joy in his heart over his son making it through what I'm sure a parent sees as a milestone and a chance to breathe and think you've almost completed your journey.

At the time, I felt nothing but twinges of regret and jealousy for what lay ahead for Barclay. In my young mind, he had rounded Park Avenue and I was sitting somewhere between GO and St. James Place. Barclay had done all the right things, walked the right paths and was now on his way to college, freedom and success. At that moment, I put him on a pedestal where I would have liked to have been had I made better decisions.

I saw us on two different planes of life. My life was somehow going in a cruel twisted direction that happened to me while Barclay's life was being handed to him in a silver spoon. I felt such jealousy in my heart wishing my life had been as steady as his. Or that my father was the one so proud to see me graduate that day. It never dawned on me his life could be cut shorter than mine. It never occurred to me Barclay would be the one to never get married, have children, a career and a lifetime of memories to pass on to his grandchildren. I was too wrapped up in a moment of envy for what he could have as opposed to what I could make for myself.

I don't know when he was taken from his family and friends or how. But, the impact of knowing he's gone is giving me a fresh perspective on my life which I may never have had before. I don't know if life is what we make it like those "choose your ending" books we read as kids. Is it what we choose or are we subject to destiny? By all accounts, Barclay should be the one here right now. But I'm here instead. I am not worthy of keeping Barclay's memory. We barely knew one another. But I will keep my memory of him in my own account and try to never forget the gift I have been given to see life in my corner after all the times I've forsaken it.