Hopefully my brother knows this already, but I found out that one of his friends from our younger years died. In 2006. Maybe he told me already, but when I read about it on Facebook, it looked like new information to me. Some guy from our high school started a Facebook page memorializing people who went to school with us, and have since passed. As I was looking through the posts, I saw a name I recognized: Jerry Bell. It appears that he died in a motorcycle accident. It's quite jarring when you get information like that. Someone I knew, albeit not as closely as my brother, is no longer part of this world. It's not like I had seen or heard from him in years. Obviously, given the length of time since his passing. But still, it scared me a little. Not scared me as in "haunted house" fright, but it just shook me loose a little. I have no way of confirming if what I read was true or not. At this point, I have no other thing to do but believe what was written. I don't know the person who added the post, so I can't call to confirm the news. I just have to assume it's true. Sad.
With Jerry's passing, I now know two people who have died in a motorcycle accident. The first was a friend of mine, Frank Ferraro. He died in July of 2007. On Friday the 13th. I had lunch with him the day before, at the Renaissance Hotel next to our work. I went to lunch quite a bit with Frank over the years. Most often it was at Potbelly Sandwich Works in either Norridge or Rosemont. It depended on how we felt. There were three of us that went: me, Frank, and Roy Surges. I always ordered the same meal: a turkey and swiss, bag of baked chips, and a chocolate shake. I don't always have shakes when they are available at places; it just became a tradition when I was out with Frank and Roy. I enjoyed those lunches. Mostly because we just talked and laughed. The location in Norridge had a guitar player once and a while to entertain the patrons. We felt slighted when he wasn't there. After Frank died, Roy and I went back to Potbelly's in tribute of our friend. The guitar player wasn't there. The lunch wasn't the same, in many ways.
Frank's death was a shock. It came only two months after my dad died. One minute, I had lunch with Frank, and the next he was gone. Shocking deaths are something I have experience with, unfortunately. It never gets any easier when they happen.
My cousin was killed in a car accident in November 1986. It was on her 20th birthday. I can still hear my mother's scream when we got the call. My uncle was killed a couple of years later, in April 1988. We had just had a family reunion of sorts, at my grandparents house. The child my uncle adopted out as a baby 20+ years before, had finally found his birth parents after a four year search. My uncle brought him over to meet his family. After the celebration, my uncle took his son back to a parking lot to drop him off at his car. Taking a wrong turn, my uncle was hit, head-on by a drunk driver. My father had to identify the body. It was the first time I ever saw him cry.
Frank's death wasn't the first the company I used to work for experienced. A couple years prior, Jackie Mitchell, suddenly died. Jackie was born with a hole in her heart. She didn't know about this most of her life. Shortly after her wedding, she began experiencing extreme lethargy. So much so that she went to the doctor to figure out her issue. They discovered her heart defect. I remember her telling me about the pending surgery in my office. It was so casual that it seemed like she was just getting a simple procedure. On her heart, of all places. As an outpatient, of all things.
Jackie's surgery was not a success. The valve they used to replace the hole was defective. It was sudden and it was tragic. I remember how shocked I was when my former boss called to tell me the news. It was on a holiday--Labor Day--so the call was even more unexpected. I had just finished having lunch with Cyndi and the kids and we were heading to Borders to buy some books. I was driving our old Nissan Quest in the parking lot and my cell phone rang. I nearly crashed the car when Jim broke the news. I walked around numb for several hours after. I kept remembering the fact that Jackie invited me to her wedding. It was being held on the first and only time Cyndi was leaving town for a short vacation, sans husband and kids. I didn't feel right getting a babysitter for the occasion. I thought about dressing up the kids and taking them to the ceremony. But ultimately decided against it. Laziness is the only excuse. I've always felt bad about not supporting Jackie and her husband in their new union. I'll never be able to right that wrong.
Death, in general, sucks. Tragedies, life lost too early, that stings even more. Felicia Kotowsky, Shelly Fosco, Jackie Mitchell, Frank Ferraro, and now Jerry Bell. They all must of been needed elsewhere for a more important, some may say higher, purpose.
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