In Which Eeyore is Contemplative

I stumbled across the web page for my 20th high school reunion (20th reunion, not 20th high school...though I was an Air Force brat, we didn't move around THAT much).

It hit me hard. At first I spent an hour reviewing the weight gain, baldness, striking beauty and overall change of my classmates then and now. Then I clicked on "In Memory."

Of the five classmates who were listed as deceased, I had only been aware of one death -- a suicide that, I am chastened to say, did not surprise me when it happened. But the other four shocked me. At that point, despite the other offerings on the site, I was really only able to focus on finding the reason for their deaths.

That information isn't listed on what is intended (and succeeds) as a warm and upbeat site. But it's still bothering me.

Partially because of the field I work in, I sometimes get into a snit if "big news" happens and I'm not the first to find out. This self-centeredness in me is ugly, especially when viewed in light of the bigger issue: the disastrous events of these people's passing.

And yet...how could I not have known? How could we not have known? I'd like to think that the flip side of my self-indulgent failing is a keen sense of how my high school community could have helped surviving family members, had we been aware.