Death of a classmate

My mom was over at my new house - formerly my grandmother's house - today, putting up some dollar-store decorations that she got to make the house look more lived-in. She ran into a friend of hers who was coming down the street.

"I just took a cake to the Berry's house," her friend said. "Young Joe just died, you know."

I went to school with "Young Joe" from kindergarten through eighth grade, and possibly into high school - once we hit high school everything changed, and I lost track of the handful of classmates I graduated with from Catholic school. Joe was always a little bit ahead of the rest of us in the social skills department - cooler, tougher, more relaxed. He was the first of us to get laid (in the seventh grade, I think, by one of the eighth grade girls - I wonder if she'll be at the wake?) He was the sort of kid I always imagined would do very well or very badly.

Whether he did very well or very badly, I do not know. What caused him to die at the age of 39, I do not know. All I know is that he's dead now, survived by both his parents, his younger sisters, his little brother, and his new wife.