Finding Lost Friends - the Downside

In the last 2-3 years, I've been a little obsessed with finding long-lost friends especially those I've attended school with. I just wanted to know how everyone is, which paths they have chosen, if they had careers, children, something to share that may continue to change the way I look at things.

Thanks to the Internet, I've found a number of my old schoolmates. Most of them look the same (even 10-20 years down the road!), would have recognised them anywhere. But most have also gone on to do things I wouldn't really imagine them doing - but all for the better.

It has been really wonderful receiving news from them. Exams and punishment from the teachers aside, the years spent at school have been among the very best in my life. Or at least for some reason I think of them fondly today.

And my friends from long ago, whether we had been close or not at all, shared a part of my life and memories with me. Which is why I really do treasure them all.

Unfortunately, not all is rosy. Discovered through another newly-found friend that Grace, from back at University, died in 2004 of a rare one-in-a-million tumour. May God rest her soul.

It set me thinking once again of one of my Professors reminding us to Carpe Diem - seize the day! - when we could. Though truth be told I've always been more a Carpe Diem Cras sort of girl. Just need to look at all the piles of everything from paper to washing around me to know.

I read Grace's blog outlining the last days leading to her death. And I am comforted by the fact that she had fought to the end, making the most of of her living moments (even wrote a book about her disease : "Pain in the Neck") and giving courage to those who knew or have read about her.

There I am lamenting all the time about not wanting or able to do anything during winter because the cold gets to me. Tomorrow I am giving lunch to the mothers in my class. OK, it helps that the sun seems to be out again. Still, Carpe Diem!