A life worth remembering

I'm tired. When I'm tired, I don't want to do anything but sleep. It doesn't matter if I have to do homework or clean my room or whatever. Sleep wins almost every time, or else I don't feel good and I'm not fun to be around. (Andy, who traveled throughout Europe with me last summer, knows this. Let's give him a round of applause.) So I'll try to be brief.

On Sunday night, I got the horrible news that a girl I went to school with for many years had been killed. I was stunned. I'll be the first to say that I didn't know her very well, but I knew her for a long time. I went to pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school, junior high, and high school with her.

I just did a little fact-checking, as I like to do when I'm writing a post. I went through my pre-school yearbook (yeah, I have one) and found that she was in my sister's and my class. Now it's a little haunting to see the group picture. There we all are, captured for a moment in time. Who could have known back then her life would be cut short so soon?

She went to St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School from kindergarten through sixth grade. The memories from her last year stick out most for me. It's clear to me now that she wanted little more than to be liked. She had friends, to be sure, but I don't think she got the respect she deserved.

I didn't see her much when we went to Pompano Beach High School together. Probably the last time I talked to her was at a football game in my freshman year. Later, I heard that things were rough for her, although I'm not sure how much of what I heard was true. She gave birth to a daughter and loved her dearly.

In recent years, most of what I knew about her I gleamed from friends and from her Facebook page. Her "About Me" section began:

My name is Misha and before I get into anything you should know that you know absolutely nothing. No matter what you think, see, or heard, you no absolutely NOTHING about me...

I thought it was funny at the time, but it's true. I really didn't know her. So in a way, it might seem odd that I'm going on about this terrible thing that happened, but she was almost always a small part of my life. She was always there, and then, suddenly, she wasn't. It definitely has made me think about how it could happen to anyone at any time.

Misha had recently moved to Louisiana. According to some news articles and her obituary, she pulled over on the highway to check on another driver who had just been involved in a hit-and-run crash. After walking over to the other car, she herself was hit by a passing car whose driver has not yet been found.

I'm home now (that's how I have access to my pre-school yearbook; I don't carry it around with me at all times). I'm home because my friend Mark is joining the Navy, and he invited my sister and me to his going-away party, which is tomorrow. Misha's funeral and a candlelight vigil are also tomorrow.

I would like to go to the vigil if I can, but if not, I've at least been reminded about how fragile life can be and what a good example Misha was for all of us. In spite of all she had been through, she stayed strong and still went out of her way to a good deed that unfortunately led to her untimely death.

That wasn't brief, but I think it was just right.