Remembering...
So it is 5:30 in the am and I am still awake. I think I have some minor food poisoning, which sucks but it has ruined my ability to sleep at the moment, still seeing as how I am supposed to be waking up in a few hours I figured I would take my mind off it here. And there has been one thing on my mind a lot today as I am sure, judging by your posts, has been on many of the people on my friends list as well.

The death of a classmate, of a friend.

After having thought about it all day, I drew out a lot of fond memories of Brandon Boaz. It made me regret that somehow I haven't really talked to him since graduation. Its weird, the two of us had never been on bad terms at any point in the some 16 years that I knew him. Growing up he had been a great friend to me, the two of us both grew up in Tremain and had spent the majority of our lives there so we were no strangers by any means. I remember the early hours getting up and trudging down to the bus stop to be part of the cluster of kids who got picked up first and hauled off to the elementary school. We suffered through that together almost our entire school careers. I remember winters with snow fights.

I still have a picture from my birthday party right after second grade with him in it, a big cheesy grin on his face. I always found it particularly funny.

I remember specific incidents too. One of those that I will always remember as one of the more shocking moments in my elementary school life. Brandon getting in a fight with Paul Schreiber, one of the funniest and most terrifying events ever. Our bus got so packed by the last stop and in 6th grade we ruled the back of the bus. But even though we had to wake up the earliest and get on the bus first and suffer the whole ride, those 6th graders that were part of the last stop always thought they were somehow entitled to our seats. One time after Jon and Paul had forced their way into the seat with Brandon, he got a little fed up and decided to sit on Paul's lap. He started bouncing up and down and calling Paul 'Santa' and telling him his Christmas wish list. Paul became furious and started chocking Brandon, we were all freaking out because we honestly thought someone was going to get hurt, it seemed that serious. But Brandon just kept laughing the whole time.

I'll always remember that laugh. He practically had a girl's giggle XD

6th grade was also the year he put the whole school in an uproar by running away before classes started. When he went and hid in the woods next door to the school.

The first memory I have of Tasha is because of him too. We'd had to go to the middle school for one of those stupid recitals. Brandon had known Tasha I think because of their older siblings but I remember them talking and how I had already thought from that point that Tasha seemed sweet.

Brandon had also been one of my surprise manga converts. My Love Hina manga will always remind me of him, he had seen me reading them one day on the bus towards the end of freshman year. He started freaking out because Brittany, a girl, was reading 'porn' on the bus XD
Needless to say, even if he was only interested from the half naked girls on the covers, he ended up as big a fan of the series as anyone else. I know he went and bought all of it himself eventually. I'm lucky I got the last volume back of it, I remember he had it forever XD

And I remember how mad I got when he started turning into a pot head. I vented to my sister about it one night, it was hard to see someone I had known so long choose that path for himself.

And I'll always remember our final reunion of the 'Tremain Gang' before he left to become a military brat. They were fun times, its too bad that we couldn't have had one more reunion before this happened.

But what I regret is that I made myself a stranger and I don't know why. We had become different people and chosen very different lives, yes, but we'd never been on bad terms in the whole time I have known him. I had no reason to not talk to him... but I guess I must have felt there was really no reason to talk to him either. Maybe I should have, not that it would have changed anything, I'm not that naive, but I regret that this is what it took to realize something so simple. That I'd forgotten just how much of life we had shared together.

It also is a bit shocking since he was one of the youngest in our class, he had only just turned 20 while some are already looking at 21 in a month or so.

All I can hope now is that whatever happens when we die is treating him well now.

RIP Brandon, you may be gone but you're certainly not forgotten.