Dark Days
I don't know if others are in the habit of Googling friends and acquaintances to see what they're up to, but it's something I do when the mood strikes me. In this particular case, it ended badly. This morning, I was looking up some of my co-workers from my old pre-K office, and upon looking up one friend and co-worker, my browser's wheels spun for a moment and then spit her name out in the "is survived by's" of an obituary. "Oh no," I thought. Her boyfriend was killed this summer in an accident. It happened in New Orleans, and I even remember seeing it in the paper and on TV, but I didn't put two and two together. I had met him a bunch of times the summer before Katrina, but I don't recall if I ever knew his last name. Probably if I read the actual paper (the one that's made of paper) instead of nola.com, I would have recognized him in a picture. But I don't.
She had e-mailed me this summer, just to say hi. She moved after Katrina, and got another job. Said she and the on-again-off-again boyfriend realized they were meant to be together after all, and she was expecting a ring. The accident was a week later. I know I should say something, but it feels horribly, horribly belated. And I am all existentially freaked out, because... it's just mind-numbing, how awful it is.
I drove home from work, the rain pelting down on my windshield. The light at Jefferson and Freret, functional for months, was back to blinking red and yellow today. I sighed as everyone lined up in the wet gray afternoon light for the usual four way stop we all have memorized by now.
If I were her, I would never come to New Orleans again. Everything here dies.
1 comment:
I don't know what to say either. It makes me sad.
I think you could still tell her you're sorry, it probably isn't too late to her, and people have probably stopped talking about it to her and she might appreciate the opportunity.
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