The other day I had a very strange experience. Surreal. Not in a good way. It started as one of those nights where I decided my brain needed a break from real life to take a gander through my friend's facebook pages. Perhaps I was bored... or perhaps I was trying to feed some kind of subconscious hunger for gossip. In any case, I found something.
I was snooping on one of my old pal's profile who doesn't update very much. I noticed a status that read "Loren you will be missed... RIP". It caught my attention because we have a mutual friend named Loren. I felt my breath instantly become shallower as I started to type Loren's name into the search bar. I clicked on his thumbnail profile pic and was brought to his familiar page. At this point I was still thinking that it might be a joke. The first thing I noticed was that his fiance had been the only person posting on his wall for the entire visible part. Each one of her posts was a little summary of her day and some thoughts, followed by I love you. I scrolled down and down and down, reading older and older posts. Most were hers, one or two were written in an Asian language from others, and there was also one that was A quote from the bible. It all seemed to match... perhaps he really had past away.
I checked back on my other friends page as to when it was posted, finding out that it was the end of March. I scrolled down to the march postings on Loren's page... the last post he made March 18th... the first post indicating that anything was wrong was his cousin's post - something about he will be dearly missed - March 23. What happened?! I was in utter shock... how had this happened? and how did I not find out until now?
I had commented on his wall about how cute the picture of him and his fiance was on March 11th. Both him and her had liked it. When he first met her he sent me emails telling me about how he thought he had found "the one". He described their first date - it was so romantic - cheesy... but in a good way. I met him when I was 18. He came to visit my friends in lethbridge who had met him in Alaska when they lived their for a few years. We hit it off instantly and kept in touch via email and phone a few times, and facebook. He was such a nice guy with a great sense of humour. I always felt he was a "soul friend" ( I use this term to describe friends that don't have to see each other often or even know each other well but it's as though they know each other on a deeper level - like their spirits know each other or something...). Loren was one of those people I cared about without ever being close (we live in different countries) or even talking much - it was just "known".
Such a vacant feeling... I knew it was real but kept thinking "how could this be?" He wasn't ready (clearly God felt differently). I've been trying to get a hold of our mutual friends but after several years and busy lives we've drifted apart - plus they don't use facebook that much anymore.... to no avail - I still don't know how it happened.
In conclusion, I suppose I've taken away from this experience a knew appreciation for the fragility and dynamic quality of life. "The only constant in the world is change". I've also come to feel very thankful for having had the chance to know Loren and the better part of his personality. His life was like a tragic chick flick... something like the notebook I guess. A real life story illustrating the power and importance of love. I shed a few tears thinking about the power of his short life, and how it seems as though his death was like the period at the end of a very meaningful story.
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