On coming across the obituary of a college acquaintance
The other day I came across the obituary of someone I knew as a college freshman. I wasn’t looking for information about her, but I saw it nevertheless.
I almost wrote “I came across the obituary of a girl I knew as a college freshman.” But because the obituary was dated only a few years ago, of course by that time she was no girl. She was someone most people would describe as old.
But that’s not the way she exists in my mind’s eye, despite the article’s description of a long – and what sounds like a productive and happy – life. To me, she remains that seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl, the one I met in the first days of my stay at the far-off university I attended freshman year.
I didn’t fit in. Perhaps I wouldn’t have fit in anywhere; at the time, I was shy with strangers although not when you got to know me. I looked different from most of the students there, though. They dressed differently, they wore their hair differently, they understand the ropes of the place and I didn’t, and I was constantly being asked a question I had never heard before: “What are you?” Meaning “what’s your ethnic background?”
The person whose obituary I just found – I’ll call her Nancy, although that’s not her name – lived right across the hall from me and my roommate. She was the essence of cool at the time – the right clothes, the right hair, and tremendously attractive. But it wasn’t just her looks. She had a lively personality, was a bit quirky but not too much, and seemed especially sure of herself and comfortable in her skin without being obnoxious or even off-putting.
I lost touch with her after freshman year, and we hadn’t been close even then. But I wasn’t surprised to read about her accomplishments, both public and private, or the heartfelt tributes from friends. Such things fit with what I remembered.
I felt a sorrowful loss. She died not young, but younger than average. She apparently had some physical suffering in her final years; some of the friends alluded to her courage in the face of it. I wish I had known her better; she sounds like she would have been a good person to know. But it was not to be.
And she represents so many people I’ve lost, many of them people I lost touch with over the years but some of them those to whom I was close. There’s nothing to be done about it.
As one ages one has to be strong, that’s for sure.
Several of my high school classmates with a lot more energy than I have managed to assemble a list of the graduating class, about 1200 people, as I recall, and put together two reunions now, and a yearbook of sorts. The yearbook had comments from about 50 fellow classmates, including one that still sticks with me some ten years later.
Most of us had written notes about what we did after high school — college, work and kids. Frank (not his real name), lived about a half mile from me when we were in HS, and I always found him and his twin brother great guys. Good athletes, good students (from all I knew) and generally fun to be around.
But Frank displayed an entirely different side in his comment. He had written a full page on how much he had hated high school, and the classmates he felt had shunned him all these years ago, and the teachers and the classes. He recounted how he had gone on to a local college, flunked out, then moved across the country where he found employment with an art dealer and had a long career smuggling art out of Europe. He had never married and left no relatives.
The whole thing seemed so out of character from the person I had known, and so bizarre, that I suspected it was a put on. Three years later he passed on in his late sixties, so I will never know if it was fanciful fiction or the memories of a bitter person.
There were 94 in my graduating class, and we had about 20 show up for the 50th reunion a few years ago. We shared knowledge of who had passed and who were known to be still with us but absent for whatever reason, but most were just missing and unaccounted for with their fate unknown. Natural selection, Darwinism and migration patterns being what they are, that’s the natural order of things. Nobody had any suggestions or expressions of desire for a 60th and I’ll be surprised if we have one. Onward thru the fog.
Thank you
A few months ago a friend of mine who was a girlfriend in college passed away, she was a lovely woman, divorced with two grown children and grandkids and a bit separated from them because she was a conservative and they were not. My friend had a history background of her midwestern state where her father had been a lt. Governor and the family weren’t back much further than that.
My friend was an excellent photographer and she loved her pictures of old barnes and flowers and she would share one or two every morning on Facebook where we reconnected after over 60 years. We shared some personal information and while I was in a better situation with my second wife hers was a bit lonely.
I always looked forward to her postings every morning and then months ago she was not there. After a week I sent an email to her asking her how she was and she had been in the hospital and was now back home. We are in our early 80’s and hospital stuff can be serious. Then she told me she was going in for a pace maker implant and I said some of my friends have had that procedure and they were much better afterwards.
The next thing I knew she had passed away and I still miss her and touching base every few days, admiring her photographs and remembering when we were young and she was ever so beautiful and the music was great. She always remembered how good the music was in the early 1960’s. I do miss that fine woman and her moving on to her next adventure.
A number of years ago, maybe 20, I found out that a girl I had dated in College had passed. That did shock me. She was a delightful Woman, very funny.
Tex-
Cardiac pacemakers are wonderful. I happily have one after insisting I get a Holter monitor, which records heartbeats to pick up episodic abnormal rhythms. Turns out my two sudden unconscious falls, one with a CNS bleed resulting, were due to sudden episodes of brady (=slow)- cardia (heart).
F
Several years ago my HS class had its 50th reunion. We were requested to write a short summary of then and now. A classmate whom I had seen as content and well-adjusted—Student Council, Honor Society, cheerleaders—wrote of her discontent in high school. Whaat? There was, I suspect, an X-factor. I had heard over the years that her father, though quite accomplished in his profession, was also an alcoholic. I suspect her father’s alcoholism was spurring her discontent. Family issues are often not discussed among school peers—I kept silent about my family issues— so I am not surprised that she kept silent about it in high school.
It is also not uncommon to have disparities in high school—and in other times of life—between the outer self one presents and one’s inner self.
F; Gringo:
By Edward Arlington Robinson:
The whole thing seemed so out of character from the person I had known, and so bizarre, that I suspected it was a put on. Three years later he passed on in his late sixties, so I will never know if it was fanciful fiction or the memories of a bitter person.
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Did you contact his brother?
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I’m going to wager someone who did not like him appropriated his handle.
Our spirit, of which our consciousness is composed… is eternal and that is why, “No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart”. Robert A. Heinlein
and why there’s truth in the expression that the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
We’re all God’s children.
We live on the Planet of the Walking Wounded.
Make no assumptions. Humans are dangerous.
My generational sports stars, movie stars, and friends/school mates passing seems to increase exponentially now.
I was surprised that Robert Redford didn’t receive more recognition after his passing – just a day or 2 in the news, then nothing. But we’ve been inundated with the Kimmel saga non-stop like the Pope just passed or something.
The Charlie Kirk assassination hit me like a brick. 2025 started good, now it sucks bad.
The EA Robinson poem brings back an awful memory.
There was a woman I met at the beginning of my freshman year in college, and we became good friends–never lovers, though I’ll admit I wanted that, but got signals early on that she wasn’t interested in me in that way. One thing I vividly remember in college in 1980 was telling her that I’d voted for Reagan. She seemed somewhat surprised and disappointed, but it didn’t affect our friendship in the least.
We stayed in touch after college through letters, even met up a few times when we happened to be in the same city. She called me once out of the blue in the early 90s after a couple of years since last being in touch, and I remember the nice feeling of just being able to pick up where we’d left off and have a long, easy conversation. Six months later I sent her a letter that I was going to be traveling to her city, hoping we could meet up. I was somewhat surprised not to hear back from her. Then I got a letter from her mother that she’d committed suicide. She was 34. Still probably the most traumatic event of my life. I couldn’t help wonder if that phone call was a cry for help that I’d missed, though there was really no hint of anything.
Neo, thanks for the poem. I learned the story, somewhat loosely rendered, from Simon and Garfunkel before encountering the original.
Simon & Garfunkel – Richard Cory?(Live Canadian TV, 1966)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=simon+and+garfunkel+richard+cory&t=brave&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHNmfhCbpbJU
I have missed those guys for over 40 years.
How amazing to have not only their recordings but videos of their performances!
My siblings and I had agreed to meet at our hometown for my HS 50th reunion, me being the person somewhat in the middle and that being the next one coming up.
It was scheduled for the fall of 2020.
We haven’t tried again.
I really don’t know what happened to most of my classmates, in HS or college, other than a few close friends. At least one college pal has passed away, nearly 10 years ago now, from a stroke. Sadly, several of the people I knew well passed away at young ages from illnesses.
My high school BFF is still with us and we touch base occasionally, but I haven’t tried to reconnect with anyone on Facebook (which I loathe). The alumni magazine from my college carries obits, and I occasionally see a name I recognize. Mine probably won’t be listed, as we don’t submit notes to that periodical either.
In fact, as far back as I can remember, no one in my graduating class has ever posted an item to the Class Notes, which is so unusual that someone else asked what was going on. I don’t remember the answer now, but that was the one and only response.
Knowing a lot of that group, I think we were just being contrarian, and then it became a point of honor to have the only totally empty section in the bunch!
My high school class numbered 29 people. We had our50th reunion in 2000. By then only 25 were still living. I assembled the booklet that carried the histories of those who wrote them. (Abou 16 responded, as I recall.) An amazing group of people who had accomplished a lot – engineers, teachers, veterinarians, business owners, etc. All pretty conventional lives, except for one very honest woman. She wrote an account of having been a TWA stewardess (that was the term back in the day) who eventually became a drug addict and big-time drug runner. She was eventually arrested, served time, recovered from her addiction, and went on to become a drug rehab nurse. I had a long conversation with her at the reunion. She had become the most honest, fearless, least concerned about appearances of any person I have ever known.
We had a 60th reunion where fourteen of us attended, with one not in attendance because he was in a nursing home. We had planned a 70th reunion of the six of us still standing. Unfortunately, it was canceled due to Covid.
I could not have asked for a better group of people to go through high
school with. Today, our number is three. We still exchange e-mails.
Our next reunion is on a date unknown at a place we hope is as wonderful as our small hometown.
Richard Corey reminds me of a similar story in Steinbeck’s East of Eden:
My graduating class in high school was quite large. Big suburban high school, so not surprising really. I could not have known more than 40 well at all…and enjoyed the company of about half of those.
I keep in touch with an old friend as often as our schedules permit & he keeps me up to date on others about whom he knows. Time. Distance. Different orbits in life. I know at least one has died…I’d be surprised if there weren’t more. I heard from some former college housemates a bit ago. I was delighted simply to know they were still among the living. We three I hope will do better at staying connected.
When that “found ’em in the obituaries” list begins to grow longer…it’ll be sad, and I’ll know someone will one day find my name there too. That’ll be ok…I’ll have made other plans.
@ John Guilfoyle > “When that “found ’em in the obituaries” list begins to grow longer”
So true, both of personal friends, relatives of the same generation, and the movie & music stars we grew up with.
When my mother was in her late seventies, I heard that one of her friends, who was a familiar visitor to our house in my youth, had passed away. I asked her how the funeral was, and she said she had stopped going to them; too many were happening nearly every week, and making her depressed.
“I’ll know someone will one day find my name there too. That’ll be ok…I’ll have made other plans.”
A very good point!
“ As one ages one has to be strong, that’s for sure.”
Amen. Thanks, Neo. Your posts are a great gift.
I grew up in a small town. In junior high, I had been with the popular crowd and then got shunned. It was the trauma of my youth. In recent years (I’m in my 60’s), I’ve learned that there were other people who were shunned. I didn’t know it back then. If I’d’ve known it, I’d’ve reached out to them.
A few years ago I found out that an old girl friend had died in 2018 and it hit me unexpectedly hard. I had liked her a lot and it was too soon, too early. The obituary listed no cause, but I suspect cancer. Her father is still alive at 101, he was a veteran of three wars and a member of the 442nd regimental combat team in WWII. He looks pretty good for his age.
Another unpleasant surprise was the sudden death of Mary L. Cleave in 2023. I had known her when she was at USU and she was the last person in our group I expected to die before 80. I was about to recommend her as a speaker and discovered she had died the previous weekend of a stroke. I miss knowing she is still around.
I’m living on borrowed time.
I had a best friend in elementary school, who moved across the country when we were in 5th grade. It was a big trauma of my childhood. She was a blue-eyed, blond pigtailed beauty, the perfect student whom teachers adored. We loved the same books, played dolls together. She sang in the choir. We actually kept in touch, via letter, somewhat decreasingly, but through high school. Her letters were pages long, and beautifully illustrated, and I still have some of her crafts — Christmas ornaments and felt sewing kits that are charming and accomplished.
I think we lost touch once we started college. My parents split up, with severe financial consequences, including to my education. I had some rough years and suppose I was embarrassed. But I always thought of her, and imagined her living some perfect life: graduation, career, marriage, children.
Once serious online information started being available, I Googled her. To my absolute shock, it turned out that she had been dead for more than 20 years — killed by a drunk driver the Christmas after she graduated from college.
The information hit me like a brick, as if she had just died. I felt real grief, although I hadn’t even seen her in more than 30 years. I suppose it was the contrast with my fantasies. And the fact that, most of the time I had been envying her, she was dead.
Similar vibe but different situation for me. I was thinking about the “good old days” of my first job now about 30 years ago and went through “where are they now” of my team and friends I hung out with at the time, which included going to bars after work, Christmas parties at each other’s houses and the like.
Using search and Linkined I found most of the team were retired and enjoying life, but I found one had died nearly ten years ago – of pancreatic cancer. This was shocking as she was just a little older than me, and we were good friends who just drifted apart after we both left the company and moved to different parts of the country. I was sort of sad that I was not around for her at the time, and that it took me nearly a decade to find out.
At a high school reunion, a classmate said that his wife…who had just died, she was also a classmate…had asked him to give a message to me. Which was surprising, I didn’t know her well, I think we were in an English class together.
The message was that she wanted to apologize: I had apparently invited her to some event, and she’d never gotten back to me. (It must have been a group event, sailing maybe, pretty sure I’d never considered her for dating)
Interesting that she remembered that after all those years.
My 50th high school reunion was this past May. At Omaha’s Jesuit high school, they have us walk the stage and get an honorary diploma. I recall when the Class of 1925 was at our graduation. One of the alums was Logan Fontanelle, grandson of a famous Indian chief. There was a Fontanelle Hotel in Omaha back in the day and there is a school named for his relative.
We’ve had more than 20 classmates pass and we read their names at a Mass.
The real shocker was one classmate who was a Harvard alum. He had some type of nervous breakdown after college and he was just a wreck. Very sad to see.
So that the Class of 2025 would remember the Class of 1975, I gave away about 50 copies of Baltasar Gracian S.J.’s book: The Art of Worldly Wisdom. Hope some of them read it. Secret Jesuit knowledge!
Art Deco: Did I contact his brother? A good question. I did not, partly because I don’t know how to. But I think I will try now. Thanks for the suggestion.
Neo: Thank you for the Richard Cory poem. We really don’t know people the way we think we do. Nor, obviously, are we known by others as we really are. Apologies for hijacking your thread.
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is neo you mourn for.
David Foster… I graduated from high school almost 50 years ago… And I have a list of some I’d apologize to if I were given an opportunity. I wasn’t a really nice kid back then… took me a while to get my heart in the proper place.
My wife and the Holy Spirit are still working on it. 😉
I guess all of us who are well up in years have stories like these. Two that hit me harder than I would have expected involved finding out in my 60s that someone I’d known in high school or college and not seen since had died in very sad circumstances within a decade or less of the time I had known them. The fact that they’d been dead for thirty or forty years and I didn’t know it was weirdly affecting, though I hadn’t been close to them even in youth.
I had to count it out, but, yes… 47 years ago, I was sitting in a chair, waiting my turn, in a barbershop, when I picked up a week old copy of Time and read about the spectacular death of a female friend. We had been “steadies” in junior high, later neighbors, and semi-confidants through high school. We never kept in touch, and I was surprised to find that she and her husband, who I slightly knew, left behind 4 kids when the building they were working on to open their own business was hit by gasoline tanker truck.
That convinced me of my own mortality in a way that even losing friends in Vietnam didn’t.