Standing Tall

"They are taken from this world when they have served their purpose; when they find what it is, whatever it is, and live up to it. Perhaps in death they are told that they have accomplished their specific end, that they have found the keys to their door, and therefore must be taken from this world. But their purpose, however, lives on and is impressed upon the rest of us so that even if we tried we could never forget them. Their mark is unseen and unobserved, but it is felt at all times. Once there, it remains forever so that nothing is ever lost or forgotten. The people that leave their mark are the dead, and they live on through photographs."



Remembering the last time I saw him alive, running off across the long grassy park, waving as he hurried off, got me thinking about pictures once more. Eight months after this last impression, and he was unexpectedly taken away.

In an attempt to explain how a picture could unfurl itself into a tale is this.

I'm here, standing tall.

He's out there, cut short.

He got the news on the fifth of March, and died a solemn twenty days later. I effortlessly envision the day I saw him lying in that casket; he looked nothing like the boy I knew. There were scars and bruises all over his body, one especially chilling scar stretched across his hairless skull, still fresh with the cut of a knife and stitching of the previous days autopsy.

What strikes me the most is that his family had a cabin right near ours. We had been neighbors forever, yet we barely knew each other. It hurts to acknowledge that he is gone and never coming back, and what�s worse is the fact that I will never have another chance to get to know him. Mankind gets the idea that people are taken from this earth when their purpose has been served. He had a short time to leave his mark upon all the people he knew. It hurts to think that maybe if I had known him better, I too would have gained his impression. But even though I hardly knew him, there is a distinct mark left upon me, and that mark is a photograph that sparks the memories of what I did know about him, a very long time ago when we used to play with each other as kids.

I know now that perhaps I did know him, distantly, but undeniably.