Christine

The summer that I went away to Governor's School, a girl in my grade named Christine L died. She was new to the district and I actually didn't know her when I heard of the accident, but people kept saying someone named Christine in our grade had died, and I was sure I would know who it was. Eventually I found a yearbook with her picture in it, and it turned out I actually hadn't known who she was. I found a MySpace as well, and there were a couple more pictures there. Some of her best friends were some of my acquaintences, and they would write on her wall from time to time even after that day to say they were thinking of her and they missed her. Visiting that page really is heart-breaking. I probably would have liked her a ton from what was on there - she was liberal, talked about how much she loved her friends all the time, into politics, etc...

Today I was in Pollock on the North side, the regular cafeteria, and I went to get some desert or milk or something like that. On the way back, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a face that looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. For just a split second, I thought it was Christine. She looked the same - short blond hair, round cheeks, thin, pretty eyes, smiling. For a split second, I had no idea what it was going on. I was convinced for a moment that she was alive again. A moment later, I realized it was a girl who was in my Stat 200 class last semester, and nothing about the situation seemed so special anymore.

Peace out.