04 Jul Seriously. Just Go. Facebook Isn’t Enough.

I’m going to take a detour from the death law stuff. This past weekend, I went to my 20th high school reunion. A lot of people say they’re a waste of time now that we have social media. We can see where people ended up, just by surfing our phones. But. Facebook’s just not the same.

I didn’t keep up with many people from high school. I went to one of those school districts where you pretty much knew just about everybody from kindergarten on. We all grew up together. But, when I was a freshman, my dad died suddenly of cancer. I didn’t realize it at the time, and it wasn’t until I’ve experienced other deaths and watched other people grieve that I realized I withdrew because of it. I spent more time with kids outside of the district and less time with the ones at my school. It had to do with a lot of reasons, but now I see that one of them was to avoid feeling like the victim. I was never any good at being an object of pity. And being with the kids  and parents that knew me and my parents since I was little kid, was hard.

What I found out is that I missed seeing people grow up. But more than that, I missed being there for them. I missed being there for them for the celebrations and I missed being there for them when they needed it.

So. It was really important for me to go. And it is for you. You may see who your classmate married, but you won’t air guitar with him to John Mellencamp. You might stalk your old classmates, but you won’t take a shot of Fireball with them over Facebook. You won’t have your old playground boyfriend’s kid entertain your kids on the tour of the building on Instagram.

Why I’m talking about it here?

Because time is limited. And we don’t often get opportunities to rekindle connections.

How many times have you heard at a funeral that “we should have gotten together more”? It’s the cliche.

And, it’s such an avoidable regret.

So. Go to the high school reunion. Make time for dinner when your brother swings through town. Meet that old friend for a drink. Life is short. And we only get one shot at it. Keep those connections alive, even if you’ve let them slide.