Thoughts for Mikey

It shouldn't take a tragedy to make you realize it's been awhile since you've told your friends and family how much they mean to you.
But all too often, it does.

Things shouldn't end before you're ready for them to be over.
But all too often, they do.

Life is wide and deep and more than we can handle in any given moment, or even in a whole big line of moments, and we're always left wanting more of what we'll never have again. Whether it's one more drink shared with friends, or one more day to walk to class and be bored and make plans for the weekend, you need just one more. Cause you always think, "If I have just one more, this time it'll be different and honest and I'll soak in each moment of it, the width and the depth of it and I'll know it more fully than I've ever known any part of life." But life doesn't work that way. We have to take what we can and hold on hard. Pay attention and soak it in now because life changes and you may never be here again.

Mikey was a guy I knew far too casually and far too briefly. A freshman when I was a senior. A guy who smiled a lot and went about his business having fun and working hard along the way. He died in a car accident. It probably won't make the news outside of the county. The world will not stop and pay homage. But Mikey will be missed by a lot of people. And for them, today, the world stopped a little bit as they paid homage to a good guy who went about his business, having fun and working hard along the way.