Who we were...who we are...who we will become

First, this is dedicated to Painesville Riverside's Class of 1989. Last weekend reminded me how special all of you are. I wish nothing but the best to all of you. I look forward to when we can all do this again!

I don't really know what direction this is going to take. I guess that could be said of anything in life. The context of this post involves my reflecting on the past. The catalyst for many of these thoughts was our 20th High School Class Reunion which took place last weekend. The months leading up to the Reunion, and the Reunion itself, were full of enlightening moments about myself and those I have had the pleasure of knowing over the years.

One of the first things that came to mind was the quality of the individuals I got to know in junior and senior high. For lack of a better way to describe this - there was an abundance of "good" people in our class. Over time I have been able to appreciate this fact even more.

We had a decent sized class of around 300 people. During our years in school, that was our world. It did not seem like we would ever be exposed to a larger community than that. Until that point in our lives, we were all part of each other's "story." That changed after graduation [cue Don Henley's End of the Innocence.] Some of us went to college right after high school, others took a slightly different route before going to college, some started families, some joined a branch of the Armed Forces, etc. Each of our paths lead to the creation of our own unique story.

As each year passed, we started to lose contact with one another. Some of us remained in contact with certain classmates longer than we did with others. Our focus turned towards our lives, our families and our futures. Even though we may have lost contact with one another, it didn't mean we cared any less about each other or didn't still have an impact on one another. There were countless times through the years where I would think about this classmate or that classmate. I would wonder how they were doing, what they were up to and hope that life was treating them well. Occasionally, we would get a chance to re-connect with classmates here and there. It was always such a great thing to hear how someone's story was evolving.

A couple of years ago, I tried to look up a classmate of ours on the 'Net. I thought I might be able to find an e-mail address to send this person a message. Instead of finding contact information, I found an obituary for someone that shared the same name I was searching for. I read the obituary over and realized this wasn't a person sharing the same name as our classmate but was our classmate. I knew the names of Derek's family and was in disbelief once I saw the names of his parents.

Once we started to re-connect for the Reunion, we realized we had lost a number of classmates over the past several years. In my opinion, our Reunion Planning Committee did their memories justice. The moment of silence for each of our classmates was profound. The murmurs of discussions that were heard during other announcements were no longer audible. The slides for each classmate were simple in design. Each slide consisted of a classmate's name and a picture from when they walked the halls of Riverside. This was a time where less was definitely more.

I remember poking around on Facebook last Fall and finding the Class Reunion group. There were only a handful of classmates in the group at that time. It was so nice to touch base with those that were there. By the time of our Reunion, the group had grown to almost 100 classmates. The group helped serve as an ice-breaker well before the actual Reunion took place.

I enjoyed exchanging messages with classmates I already knew. I also felt blessed to get an opportunity to get to know other classmates. By the end of some of the exchanges, promises of hugs (at the Reunion) were made to one another. As far as I know, I kept up my end of things in those scenarios.

I never expected the turnout we had at the mixer at Capp's on Friday night. If ever I experienced sensory overload, it was that night and Saturday night. There were so many people I wanted to talk to yet so little time. There were classmates I wanted to talk to Friday night but never got around to it. I talked to many of them on Saturday instead.

To me, Saturday was like Reunion 2.0. There were many classmates in attendance Saturday night that were not at Capp's on Friday. It was so special getting to hang out with so many of our classmates. Digital cameras have allowed all us to share in different perspectives of the events that weekend. Ten years ago it wouldn't have been as easy to pull that off.

Getting to hang out with Roberto and his wife that weekend was special to me on several levels. Roberto lived with my family for about six months our Senior year. If that wasn't enough, we both went to Edinboro University for almost four more years. It was great to meet his wife and re-connect with him.

I've rambled long enough. If I had to summarize my feelings about the Reunion, it would be something along these lines:

I appreciated the classmates who were there, missed the classmates that weren't able to attend and felt sorrow for our classmates who are no longer with us.

Thanks again to the Reunion Planning Committee for making the Reunion weekend possible.