Bitter-Sweet Memories

I normally don't like to put anything personal in this blog -- this is a business blog, not my personal diary. But something happened recently that made me realize just how tightly intertwined every part of my life is.

I recently was asked to do a wedding bouquet for a very special young woman I'll forever only know as Wendy. A 20-year old battling cancer, but still determined to go forward with her wedding plans, even if she had to be married in the hospital. Her friends and family were working together to fold 1000 origami cranes for her, and a friend of her aunt had come across my work. She asked me to create one of my origami crane bouquets in Wendy's wedding colors -- cobalt blue and yellow. I was very moved by the story, and excited about working on the project. I thought it was such a beautiful combination, and I couldn't wait to see how it turned out.

Unfortunately, Wendy would never get to see the bouquet. Less than a week ago, I received word that she had passed away, just a month before her wedding.

It hit me hard. Not because I knew her, or would ever know her.

It was the memories.

You see, it was a very near case of deja vu. It was 12 years -- almost to the day, it seemed -- since I'd heard the same news about someone I knew. Yoshio Lamansky was my high school classmate, and an almost-friend. Though we were never close in any way, we had many of the same friends and acquaintances. He plays a starring role in many of my memories.

Yoshi was less than a month away from his 21st birthday when he passed away. I was told he had a brain tumor. Like Wendy, he was engaged to be married at the time -- his fiance was one of the many people he'd left behind.

I have to admit, when I first heard about his passing, I felt guilty. It's funny how the first memories that came that day were the guilty ones -- I used to kick him under the table and helped another friend of mine pick on him during our seventh grade English class. He never got mad, just laughed it off.

He was so shy and quiet back then, but not for long. Going through my memories of him is like a watching a slide show of a flower bursting from being just a dull bud into a dazzling display.

I remember the time he was the one of only two boys at a party. It was the summer before our eighth grade year. When he started cracking jokes about our adolescent experimentations with make-up, we dared him to go through the same kind of makeover, and to "do it better." We did him up in full drag, fixing up his hair, put on lipstick and eyeshadow and all that, and wrapped him in a bed sheet to serve as his "dress." Then we presented him to the parents of the party hosts.

I remember watching his ears turn red when I teased him about his trumpet solo he was going to perform in a concert --- just before we started playing the song. I was a trombone player, and we sat in the row right behind the trumpets. The song was, "Through the Eyes of Love -- The Theme from the movie 'Ice Castles.'" I still can't hear that song on the radio without thinking of him.

He taught me how to read a book for the "good parts."

Then there's a few other stories, stories that would have turned our parents' hair pure white back then if they'd only known. Like that one particularly memorable game of "Truth or Dare" at Leadership Camp . . .

He made so many of us laugh when we were nervous or scared. As the years went on, he seemed to have a knack for finding just the off-beat thing to say to throw us off-guard. Though the outside had become outgoing and almost flashy at times, I think at heart he was still the same guy who took every obstacle in stride, never getting mad. Always viewing life with a laugh.

Yes, I still miss him on occasion. Though I rarely run into classmates (we seem to have dispersed pretty far and wide), part of me keeps thinking one day I'll turn around and he'll be there. I know logically that he's gone -- I attended his funeral -- and yet he really isn't gone.

I think the people who are taken from the world so young, like Yoshi -- and Wendy -- are ultimately like shooting stars. The time we see them is all-too brief, yet their brilliant beauty will stay etched into our hearts and memories forever . . .