Loss

A childhood friend died suddenly of an illness last week.
She was one of my best friends in elementary school. I recall, easily, her smile, her voice, the way she talked. I remembered going to her house for a birthday get together (not many kids have birthday parties back then in Taiwan), and being in the band together. Last I saw her was probably on our graduation day over 20 years ago. And I didn't think of her much until last year, when we were all swept into a torrent of friend requests from long lost elementary school classmates. It was on a bright, sunny day when I saw my email account filled with friend requests from these long lost connections. Grown adult whose faces or postures carried hints of days of yore, but whose English names may give little clue as to who they were. I spent a good deal of time squinting at the tiny thumbnail profile pictures on my computer screen, trying to gather as many clues from the unfamiliar face in front of me to match up with the dusty images of children buried deep in my memory. Brows furrowed and eyes tearing up from hard use, there were many Eureka moments when a name was suddenly recalled, memories were polished and brought forth, and a face given context. Her face though, was not one that needed much effort to place. Even with an unfamiliar English name and a tiny thumbprint, I was able to recognize her in a glance. Still, with a gap of 20 years between us, the flow of old friend being known anew, and both not active status updaters, we never made direct contact. To know that we are connected by FB was somehow enough for me. I shouldn't have felt that way.
While whiling away the time nursing a flu-stricken child, I went online and was shocked to see RIP messages left on her wall. RIP, rest in peace. How? When? Not possible. No. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of an old friend passed away. And yet it was real. I did not even know that she was sick. I obsessively went through her profile, read every message, scrutinized every photo, trying to make up for the chance that I missed to get to know a grown her. Where did she work? What was she like? How tall did she eventually grow to be? Did she still slouch like we both did when we were little girls? Was that picture taken in Boston Commons? Had she ever been in my neighborhood? I never get to hear her grown up voice, see her grown up feature, hear any story of hers. Now I never will. It was my own fault.
Carpe Diem, people say. Seize the day. Treasure those around you. Cherish health. Why does it always take a loss in such magnitude to shake people up?
Seize the day? Sure. To do what? Build new friendships? Reconnect with old ones? Hug your children a little more? Work a little harder toward a potentially fulfilling career? Enjoy life as if there is no tomorrow?
There are only 24 hours a day, and I am but one person with no answers. I make choices, and hopefully not ones that I will regret much later. These days though, I am regretting a choice I did not make, the choice of reaching out to her while I still had the chance. Now she is gone, and all I can do is think of her, and leave her messages on her wall, hoping that it would mean something.