I didn’t know the girl, but there’s a murder trial going on around her death. I didn’t know her, but at points our lives intertwined. She lived for a time in the basement of the alcoholic who played a role in my directorial debut. She went to my high school. Someone once told me she knew who I was back then.
A buddy of mine was ferocious when I broached the subject of her death. He is not normally given to ferocity, and I don’t know why he is in this case. I don’t intend to ask; this post is not a passive-aggressive question directed at him, or at anyone else for that matter. She was a lovely, lively girl and her life was ended in a way that hurts my heart for reasons I don’t, myself, understand.
I didn’t know the girl, but somehow a bit of her lives on even in my three-times-removed mind. I hope this means someone out there has some larger piece still running, some instance that continues to pump joy and ferocity back into the pool. It would not be a replacement for her, or for her brother, who I did know a little, who is also gone far too early. It would just be something to point to when asking what comes of a good person dying young.
My hope tonight is just that for anyone you are missing, that you have enough of them running in your mind that you can take a little comfort from the trace of them that persists within your mind.