Come Together

It is interesting how in the this past month two tragedies have happened to people I grew up with back home in Arlington and how this has brought everyone together from across the country, at least in theory over the Internet.

My friend John McMahon suffered an aneurysm in January. he is doing much better now, though he still needs to recover. he can recognize faces and can eat and do some walking, which is good considering that originally the doctor's were not sure if too much of his brain had been damaged to save him. I sent John a car a few weeks ago. I knew his parents would read it so i didn't write anything inappropriate or make an inside joke.

But a community has sprung together over his being sick and they have been communicating with each other. On Facebook there is a group dedicated to exchanging information and showing support. People have gone back and visited him in the hospital though now I think because he is starting physical therapy they are trying to keep those visits to a minimum. My main conduit for information is my mother, who forwards me updates on his condition.

I haven't talked to John in a while. We both had a rough year last year and the year before that. For different reasons, but still things were difficult. He dropped out of VT and I developed Crohn's disease. Not fun. Only recently have things started to really come together for me, and I haven;t been in touch with John. There have been a few IMs but nothing much else, which is a shame considering we live down the street from one another.

The other event was the recent death of Joseph Buescher , or Joe as he was known. We went to Sunday school together. Along with John McMahon in fact. Joe went to a different high school than me so I did not know him as well, but I remember what he looked like back when we studied together for confirmation. What was interesting about his death (by a car accident) for me at least is that it brought me in touch with Anthony Buenafe, my Filipino friend who I was in elementary, middle and Sunday school with and who I was on good terms with. We were probably the smartest kids in Sunday School. I joked that our class should have done a better job picking confirmation saints, I said that I was lucky because my saint (Gennaro) is the patron saint of bloodbanks.

Anthony thought that was funny.