Death...

This is not well-written. It's rather depressing. But everything comes straight from the heart...For years I’ve had the (admittedly) rather odd habit of checking the obituaries/funeral notices, when reading the newspaper at lunchtime. Colleagues have often looked in disbelief and asked me why, but I doubt I’ve ever been able to come up with a convincing explanation. The closest I’ve come is probably something like, I do it to remind myself that life is something you “borrow” for a certain period of time and therefore should be treated with enormous respect. Not in any way meaning that I’m constantly forcing myself to be thinking of death, but especially those situations, where people my age (or younger) have died, have caused me to reflect on life. So far this has been nothing but this odd and rather neutral/anonymous habit, as I’ve never seen the name of anyone I’ve known. But that just changed Tuesday afternoon, when I recognized a name from a distant past. Not someone close. Not someone I believe I ever used to call a friend. But one of my classmates from nearly 20 years ago (when I was pretending to be studying at CBS), with whom I spent a lot of time during the three years and did all the usual stuff ranging from schoolwork to drinking beers. Actually I had lots of great classmates, but of all the people I’ve ever met at school (and life in general), I doubt I’ve ever respected anyone more than him. He was a few years older, very intelligent, sporty, a favorite with the girls and yet at the same time he was hard-working as well as having no problems at all being incredibly friendly and helpful. A truly rare combination! Looking back those three years went by extremely fast and since I’ve always been really terrible at keeping in touch, I quickly lost contact with my classmates (those were the days before mails and Facebook) following graduation. I’ve more than once thought about contacting him (as well as a few others), curious to hear the usual stuff about life, jobs, family etc. But this “hey it’s me from the past – remember?” thing has always made me feel awkward, so mails were never written (yes - I did actually find him “out there” in cyberspace). Do I regret it; of course I do, but not much I can do about it now, except perhaps write a few of those other mails I've been thinking of writing for a long time?
+ White Lies - Death (Crystal Castles Remix)