number two...
Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 - 2:08 am

so i keep forgetting to post a link to the website jay's parents made in honor of jay. it's so sweet. i still can't believe that jay is really gone.

and just when i think one tragedy was enough, i get word that another classmate of mine died. marc hobbs, whom i went to school with all my life as well... died "at home" on wedensday. that's all the newspaper said... just "at home," no reason, no cause... i dont know, i just find that all the more hard to believe.

at one point, marc had to leave school because he was into drugs so badly. i dont know if he dropped out, or if his parents took him out... but he wound up going to rehab i think in middle school or early high school. anyway, he came back to high school with us and graduated with honors. we were all so proud of him. he was in most of my classes growing up as we were both in the honors track. he was really a very smart guy. i remember GnT, TAG, and ELPAT with him... his mom would come sometimes. she looked a lot like marc.

anyway, i just can't believe another person in my class is gone. i feel like my class is cursed. like there's nothing i can do to ensure that i'll be around tomorrow. like by the end of a couple years, we'll all be gone. i know that's a horrible way to think, but it's true. i can't help but imagine that something out there has us all on a list... and that we're being checked off one by one. i mean, this is the second death in our class in 4 months. 4 months is NOT a long time. especially since we graduated high school less than 4 years ago! we're only the class of 2000... by 2003, 2 out of 130 are gone. that's a horrifying statistic. no one should be gone yet. we're all too young to be gone.

and all the ambiguity of "at home" is really bothering me. i mean, what if marc wasn't as healthy as we all thought? what if he didn't really beat the drug addiction and had a relapse and overdosed? or what if he commited suicide? or what if he had a heart condition? or maybe someone poisoned his food at burger king. or maybe he had cancer and no one knew about it until too late. i mean... what happened? why does it have to be a secret? can't we just know what took marc away from us? is that so wrong?

the thing in the newspaper said that they dont want flowers to be sent, but rather memorial contributions in his name to help with the funeral costs. so i think i will send some money and a letter and politely ask to know what happened to marc. i feel like i shouldn't be left in the dark. as a classmate for most of my life with marc, i feel like i deserve to know at least how he died.

i dont know, maybe that's too forward of me. maybe i should just let it go. i dont know. i dont want anyone to be angry or offended. i mean, they did just lose their son and family member, they shouldn't have to deal with demanding friends, right? or should they? if enough of us demand, they'd have to tell, right? i dont know. i just feel so vulnerable.

any day now, my name could come up on that big list of who's next to go. who knows how it will happen. and who knows who will write a diary entry about my death... complaining that they wish they knew more... every little detail explaining how their friend and classmate died. it's horrible to think like that... but all these deaths... i can't help but thinking about how vulnerable i am... how little time i have to spend on this earth and make a difference in other people's lives. i really am so insignificant in the scheme of things. my life is practically a blink of an eye. probably less than that... and it can all be over in a second... "at home"