Shakespeare here! Wendy has some thoughts and memories she would like to share today. Here she is:

I read a classmate’s obituary in the Tribune this morning, and my mind went in many directions as I followed the story of a man who was a hero and a wanderer.

My memories of Dave have him sitting behind me in Mr. Martel’s history class. Dave would lean forward to whisper in my ear and tease, tease, tease. We also shared a terrible car accident on a gravel road with seven other teens. Dave broke his jaw and sipped soup through straws for weeks afterward.

He left our class before our senior year; however, he was still a counted-on attendee at reunions we held every five years, the latest being last June. Our short once-every-five-years conversations did not capture the life he lived…a great life he chose and pursued.

Then my mind skipped to my classroom in 1985. I asked my senior advanced composition students to write a letter to themselves to be delivered to them at their ten-year reunion.

John challenged my assignment, asking why he should write such a letter. I suggested he write not just to look ahead but also to be reminded in ten years about his friends and his prom date. He laughed, with all the self-confidence of an 18-year-old, and said in ten years he would still be in love with and together with his senior prom date and his best friends would still be his best friends.

What John could not write in his letter was that in less than two years, just after he turned 20, he would pass away with leukemia.

I have not delivered or read the letters my students wrote; they are not mine to read. However, I have kept them locked away with me for nearly forty years. Why? My heart breaks when I think of John and the life he was denied the opportunity to choose and pursue.

Rest In Peace David and John.