What a week. What a crazy, tiring week. Obviously, I haven't posted in some time, but I wasn't really in the mindset. Taria is "vacationing," shall we say, and I am sitting at home trying to decide if, in fact, I should take a nap soon.

Last Saturday morning started the first of the four most emotionally taxing days of my life, to date. Pany called me around 11 - I had just gotten out of the shower, and I figured she was calling to remind me to return her Patti Is 40 shirt which I'd worn, but not yet washed. Pany called around 11 - to tell me a friend of mine, not real close, but still a friend, had been killed in a car accident. At first I couldn't place the name with a face. I'd always known Sam by his first name only. He was just Sam, who once worked at Pretzel Time and gave Colin and I free drinks, who was hanging out with Jayden at the Powerman 5000 concert two years ago, who told me we never got to talk enough once while he saw me walking to lunch. So when it finally clicked, the tears came, and I interrogated her (probably more harshly than I should have) on the validity of her sources. She said it was in the paper (it was), and his name wouldn't be in the article (it wasn't) because the authorities had yet to notify his parents.

Lindsey Jarzynka lives two houses up the street from me. She'd just given the news to Pany moments before and decided she should tell me in person, beacuse telling people over the phone seemed... cold and impersonal. Believe me, I wish there was no need to tell people news like that. I wish it had never happened, and news like that would just be a sick joke, one which I'd react by saying "Why would you say something like that?" But it did happen, and through the miracle of communication, news like that must be shared. I wish I had been told in person. I really needed someone there right then.

Lindsey got down here eventually, just as I was hanging up with Pany. We talked for a long time about Sam, about life and death. We washed our cars to clear our minds. The next three days went by quickly in retrospect, but at the time, my head felt like it was in this cloud, this strange cloud of disbelief and pain. At school on Monday, the teachers read us the school-sanctioned informative letter, and I almost cried. The office distributed photocopies with the two articles in the paper, the obituary, and a photo of Sam with his friends. I cried then, in study hall, when I saw it.

The wake was hard. Everyone was in so much pain, and my ride (Pany) couldn't stay in the room too long because she said she felt faint. We went to the crash site memorial for the first time on Monday. Somehow, I felt better when I was there. It was outdoors, in the sunshine, and there was just this multitude of stuff left for Sam. It was sad, still, but at the same time it was saying 'Sam mattered to us. To everyone driving by, at least understand that. Sam mattered to us so much.' The funeral was at 2 on Tuesday. Colin and I got out at noon to go have lunch and put flowers at the site. The service lasted an hour and some, and apparently the people who had come to pay their last respects to Sam numbered so many that there was a crowd forming outside the doors of the mortuary waiting to get in. Waiting to say goodbye. Seeing Sam in the casket... it was still so hard to finalize. It looked like a very well crafted doll. It was as if, any minute, Sam would just jump out from behind something and go, "Sorry about all of this, but isn't that fake me over there cool?" It hurt so, so much walking by that last time.

And so it closed, those four days. I'd like to go back out to the site again, just to visit, to see if our flowers have stood up to the past couple of days' rain. To Sam, I would like to say 'I miss you. And I feel so fortunate to have known you while you were with us.' But I'm sure he knows that. I hope he knew how much everyone loved him. His friendship extended to so many people, and all of us are trying to move on together.