On Hearing of the Death of a Classmate

By the standards we set in our youth,

we are old now, well past the age of thirty

that we set as a marker of age we thought we’d never reach,

but we did, reached it early in our young adult lives

and well beyond, doubled it this year growing older,

swearing we never would, but knowing, too, always knowing,

that time moves us forward, away from youth into age,

and, our tassels moved from right to left, our lives commencing,

we moved on, followed our fates and fulfilled our destinies,

separated ourselves, by time and distance and the choices

we made, from a place called home,

settling in for the long haul;

but today, we got the news of a classmate dying,

passing on, someone we knew, maybe well, maybe not,

someone we can’t remember, or maybe we do, vaguely,

a face in our yearbook, but the loss, one person

less in our graduating class of people we grew up with,

shared memories of time and place and each other,

that loss reminds us of who we were, then, young and eager,

ready to take on the world, living forever, until now,

facing the mortality we failed to see or maybe

just avoided, prolonged, didn’t think about,

the memories come flooding back of what we had, then,

the old building we inhabited and swore we’d not return to,

the halls and aging classrooms, older now, like us,

and worn, though no worse for wear for bearing us through,

us either, no worse for wear, remembering today one of our own,

dying young, as young as we all are, full of life

and believing still, hoping even, we’ll live on forever,

despite the aches and pains of age, stiffer joints

and aching backs, the pills and unguents that keep us going,

and children, grandchildren of our own,

youth themselves setting their own marker of age

we are so far past, our lives beginning then, fearing nothing,

until now, mortality’s reminder in the death of a classmate.