August 10

This one... this one is hard to write.

I didn't love high school. I didn't have a group, I rarely felt like I fit in, and I didn't know how to make it better. (I even took a blind date to prom because no one else asked me and I desperately wanted to go.) So suffice it to say that my voice is never among the "heck yeah!" contingent when the "would you ever want to go back to your teen years?" question is floated.

But there were a few things that made it palatable. There were the crazy, moonlit backroads drives and movies and ice cream at Friendly's with Meg. And there was Silver Chips, the school newspaper. That was big for me; it was my Thing.

I was co-editor in chief of Silver Chips my senior year, and I relished the job because I worked hard to get it. The late Friday nights spent in the computer lab putting the monthly editions to bed were the best parts of my high school experience and I cherish the memories of sitting in the hall (away from those precious computers) eating Jerry's pizza with Mr. Mathwin and the rest of the staff. 

Erik was one of those staff members. (I had a niggling feeling that I had a pic from our graduation in 1996, and after poring through box after box of albums this afternoon, I finally found it, so here it is. Enjoy my pasty whiteness.) He served as co-sports editor (or Sports Chief, as he routinely called himself) and when he wasn't lobbying for more pages for sports stories, he was cracking jokes or talking about U2 or Saved by the Bell. 

So when I woke up this morning to a text message letting me know that he'd died of cancer earlier this week, I lost my breath for a few seconds. We weren't close, per se, because I didn't really let myself have close friends until well into adulthood, but he was always, always kind to me. And that kindness stuck with me despite the passage of 20-plus years, even if I never reached out to tell him so.

We followed each other on Facebook, so I know that he left behind a beautiful wife and three absolutely adorable young children. Please pray for them, because this kind of loss... it's monumental. It fundamentally alters life and sends you spinning in all sorts of topsy-turvy directions. I know the journey far more intimately than I would like, so I know they will need the extra love.

Rest well, Sports Chief. You ran an amazing race.