Saying Goodbye

I got an email from a friend of mine earlier this week that a childhood friend of ours, Stuart, had died a few days prior. In the email was a copy of the very brief obituary. But the part I kept reading over and over, was that Stuart was dead at age 42. We were friends since elementary school. We got to be very good friends in jr. high and high school. He had a charisma about him that drew people to him. After high school we took very different paths and we eventually lost regular contact. He had a very tough time in his late teens and early 20's. After some serious setbacks in his life, he seemed to really turn things around for the better. We last talked about 8 years ago. He was the proudest of fathers. I was very happy for him. We soon lost contact again. Although it is still speculative, it seems he may have continued struggling with some of his previous demons. I recently talked to an old friend about him and regret not asking for his contact information. He's someone I figured I'd always catch up with from time to time. I'm sad at his loss and will miss my old friend.

Stuart (on the left) with Mike and Darrel on the day of our 6th grade culmination. June 1978

A friend forwarded me a more recent picture of Stuart from his myspace page.