THINGS WE'VE LOST

We lose people. Throughout our lives we lose people, we're careless that way.

We find people, people come into our lives, or people are already there as our lives begin. People find us and we find them.

But for every person you find, you have people you lose. Generally the people who are there when you come into the world are people you will eventually lose. Parents, grandparents, those people who welcomed you, eventually you will usher them out.

That's how life works.

Then you have the people you find; friends, work mates, life mates. You will lose some of those as well and I don't just mean to death, though of course that can happen as well. I mean losing people, the people who pass into your life will also pass out. Not everyone but if you're honest, most of them. I know people who have literal life long friends, I know people who marry their child hood friends. I know people who meet people in high school, college, their first job, who will be with them at the end.

That happens.

But you will lost more people than the ones you hang on to. That's life too, it's natural. From school, from work, from some social situation, you will find someone, you will become friends then somewhere along the line, you will lose them, they will pass away.

Sometimes you will lose them to enmity, to a falling out, to a disagreement that cannot be overcome. Others will just pass away, go to college, to another job, to another person. No disagreement, just moving on, passing through.

Tony Lever was my best friend in high school. I can say that with as much conviction as I can say anything. We actually met in grade eight, at Kingscourt Public School in Kingston. Tony pretty much lived across the street from the school. Our highschool, Q.E., was a couple more blocks up the street. In those days you could do five years in high school and Tony and I were close friends through all those years.

We were considered, by many people, to be an odd couple. Way back then in the 70's Tony was pretty much the definition of a preppie. I was pretty much the definition of "that long haired weirdo" I was known as a poet and a writer, Tony was a genius. No, really, he was. He would average 100 on some of his academic scores .. average .. 100. I never really understood that but still, he did.

Back in those days about the only fiction I read was either classical Greek or science fiction. Tony would look at the cover of my latest intergalactic adventure and go "Oh, ok" Tony liked, mostly, what music was playing on the radio, I tended towards pretentious noodling like Van derGraf Generator or early Roxy Music.

On the surface, we didn't have a lot in common. Neither of us were into sports, we both like music and art even if we diverged a bit in taste. Tony had a great sense of humour, it was sly and subtle, the dude was smart and it carried over to his wit.

Tony was interested in architecture and art history and had many opportunities to study abroad, I know he spend time in Venice on some kind of scholarship. So Tony passed out of my life to pursue his passions. I re connected with him once more, in the early 80's, he had just moved to Toronto and had a little apartment down on Church Street and was decorating the bathroom ceiling with kites.

That was the last time I saw him. I recently read that Tony had passed, he died last year after fighting cancer for four years. He was living in Toronto and had been working at Revenue Canada. He was a couple years younger me. It's sad that he died so young and it's tragic that he had to fight so hard for so long to stay alive.

It's sad that we passed out of each others lives but not a huge sadness. We were friends the entire time we knew each other, we never had a rift or a falling out, we just passed out of each others lives. I lost Tony, he lost me but we found our own lives, our own partners, our own futures.

Losing someone is not always a loss. It can be a sign of growth, for both of you.

We lose people. We find ourselves.