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.
The narcissistic primarily autobiographical blog of the pseudonymous d.b. echo
Wow. At least there were no kids?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the obituary in today's paper, he had two step-children and thress step-grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteAnd I realize it's wrong to judge by appearances, but from the picture that accompanies his obituary - the best, most representative photo of him his hamily could come up with on short notice - I would say that the answer to whether or not he did well would be "not".