THE
HUMOR
COLUMN
stared at my sister’s instant message. "Did you hear Jen Greely
died in a car accident?" I tried to think how to respond, but
a feeble "Holy shit" was all that came to me. Jen Greely
passed in and out of my thoughts for the rest of the day with feelings
of... Well, I wasn’t sad, nor was I numb with shock. I was definitely
feeling something, but for the life of me, I could not figure
out what. My grandmother was the first person I ever knew who died.
I was a sophomore in college. I cried for a month. The next year,
I heard that Karen Puccini from highschool – who I only knew by face
and name – had died during an asthma attack. I thought, "Gosh
that’s terrible," but then I moved on as though she were a faceless,
nameless statistic. I expected my reaction to any death to
be shock, grief, or indifference. But Jen Greely, in death as in life
had confused me.
I met Jen when I was a senior and she was a freshman in highschool. Our crowning incident was the night she stole my car from the highschool parking lot. She had needed something out of it, so I gave her my keys. After three hours and several attempts to track her down, I had no choice but to tell the police. Not ten minutes later, she strolled up the walk smiling coyly. Her face blanched when I told her – actually when I yelled at her – that I had reported the car stolen. With tears in her eyes she begged me to help her. I rolled my eyes, then told the cops I had made a mistake. I endured their ass-chewing humbly. When I told Jen that everything was okay, she hugged me saying, "Thank you," over and over. Of course, I fell for her right there. Nothing ever came of it. We were more-or-less friends for the duration of the year, but after I left for college, we never saw or spoke to each other again. To be quite honest, before my sister had sent me that instant message, I hadn’t lent Jen more than a fleeting thought. My confusion consumed me in place of grief. Her death had definitely affected me, but I never made it back for the funeral. I didn’t see the need. I had never met her family. We had no mutual friends. Hell, we hadn’t talked in years. I doubt even she would have missed me. And yet, I felt like I owed her something. A letter? A phone call? A knuckle sandwich? Maybe I just wanted her to know that I hadn’t forgotten her. Maybe I wanted to make sure she hadn’t forgotten me. It was a more-or-less selfish feeling, and perhaps that’s why I still feel such confusion over it. It’s strange the way people leave their impressions on us. There are those people that you never forget. There are those people you hope never forget you. It isn’t always a merit-based list. The most Jen Greely ever did was steal my car. By all rights, she is somebody who should have passed imperceptibly out of my mind. Instead, I find myself still trying to sort out my feelings about her death over a year later. And, all because I never had the chance to say (or to hear), "Hey, remember me? You were my friend." |
