I just got word that a guy in my high-school class died in December in the wake of long-term mental health issues. It's so completely senseless. Bill was a funny, nice, smart, gregarious fellow; we first became friends in junior high because his locker was next to mine. He wrote in my yearbook that it was nice to have me as a friend even though we were in rival academic sections (I was 8-1; he was 8-2).
It's hard to believe he's gone, and so sad to think of the years of suffering he and his family must have gone through.
I paged through our high-school yearbook after I heard about his death. One photo shows him in calculus class standing with his arms raised like a monster and grinning at the photographer. He's wearing a tie; probably it was the day of a sports competition. Other photos show him competing on the rings and the parallel bars.
And in the most ironic photo, he's sitting amidst the ivy on the ground of our "senior court" with another classmate, Beth. According to the caption, they would be remembered for telling the worst jokes of anyone in our class. And now both of them are dead, in their mid-50s.
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