In loving Memory

Dearest Darling Readers,

Maybe you remembered a few cryptic posts back in September about the cruel-ness of life? That that was the worst week of all time. This is the Worst Week of all time Part II. It would seem that the pain and suffering that we'd taken so long to move on from has returned with a vengeance. Here's the low down. For me at first the shitty-ness started when my grandmother died and I contracted strep throat. But it continued for everyone else in the following week. As you probably know from previous post, many of my friends and I are all on our schools odyssey of the mind team. Last Saturday was dubbed "Super Stress Week from hell". By 9pm friday night, half the teams was still in the band room practicing in vain suffering from panic attacks and crying. Essentially the problem that we had spent THE ENTIRE YEAR working on completely fell apart last minute. Need-less to say, when we competed the next day, we did not prevail. We ranked 3rd out of 4 teams. We even lost to a middle school, in the high school division! It was pretty bad. The absolute worse though was when we were at our lowest, mourning our loss, we were presented with someone else to mourn. As you should know, the four of us all hail from Darien Connecticut. If you're from here, you know that on Friday night, we lost someone. That's why this post is dedicated to Andy Pena.

When I first met Andy, I though he was dating a mutual friend of ours.It turns out they were just really close friends. He was a freshman, only 14 years old. He was into sports, a previous swimming, and a trackie. however, I didn't find this out until after he died. I wish I'd known Andy. I knew him only through association, which really bugs me know. I should have known him better, there should be a reason behind why I'm sitting here crying over his death. I have no right to miss him, but that doesn't make me any less sad. He had played Quidditch with us many times, gaining praise for being one of the best snitches we've ever had. He had played Humans Vs. Zombie's with us. The next game was supposed to be this week, he was supposed to be the father zombie. He was going to participate in the scavenger hunt that Book is organizing. It isn't fair. I was supposed to meet him properly, I was supposed to become his friend, talk with him at least for a little while. I was supposed to know what kind of guy he was. Instead I have to grip onto the fractured memories that I have of him and wonder what would have been if only he'd stuck it out just one more week. Long enough for me to get to know him. Instead I'mm sitting here replaying the last conversation I'd had with him. We were in Hyper stress Odyssey mode and he's come in the room to poach snacks and chat it up. I had unceremoniously threatened to kick his ass if he didn't leave that instant. i don't regret saying this. I know he didn't really mind. I just regret that this was the LAST thing I'd said to him, the only thing I'd EVER said to him. I feel bad because this post is very selfish of me, if only he'd kept living for MY sake, pah! Truthfully, when I miss him the most, it's when i'm looking into my friends eyes, and she's talking about about him and her eyes become glassy with emotion as she realize that those moments will never happen again, I think of what a great person I had missed meeting. Someone who was missed this much, loved SO MUCH, truly he must have been a person worth meeting. I had missed it completely, his life. I never got to be apart of it.

I guess now we can rest assured knowing that he's at rest in his personal paradise, playing COD and eating brown sugar pop-tarts, no longer having to deal with the pain and suffering that comes with living. So young to die. So much he never got to do. So many people who will never get to see him smile. It's almost disgusting. All I can hope now is that if the zombie apocalypse ever comes, I can finally be your friend.

Lovingly,
Bimbo