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When we think of those who affect us the most, our thoughts often turn to our family and friends. It's not that we don't care about others in the extended circle of acquaintance that surrounds us; it's that we don't realize how different our lives would be without them.
Even in the largest of high schools, chances are you can identify all of your classmates on sight. You may not know their names, but based on their friends and where you see them, you can probably create a limited biography.
It isn't detailed, but it demonstrates you are all part of the same community.
In college this process continues. The number of classmates increases. But in the professional world, common interests decrease.
In all of these situations, you'll feel strong ties begin to disappear as those people shift out of your life. Those you easily recognize in high school, college and professionally will fade from your memory.
Over time you'll encounter people you should know, but you'll have no recollection of them. It's nothing to be guilty about. More than likely their memory of who you were years ago will have faded as well.
Then one day something will happen and those ties you thought were gone will reignite and become as strong as they were when your sense of community was strongest.
Recently ties to my high school re-established themselves. While randomly searching the Internet, I visited my old school's Web site. It shocked me to discover one of my classmates recently died.
For two years, we walked the same halls and ate in the same cafeteria. Because I'm two years older, I wasn't surprised I didn't recognize her name. That changed when I looked at her picture in a yearbook.
I didn't even recognize her face.
The image looking back at me seemed so young. In the picture, she was probably 15 or 16 years old.
Because all the girls wore the same style uniform, the picture revealed very little personality, except for the chain with a simple cross that dangled from the top of her white turtleneck.
I looked at the picture and wondered what that young girl would have thought if she knew what lay ahead for her.
Would she have made difference decisions if someone told her she'd be diagnosed with breast cancer before she turned 30, spending the last five years of her life fighting the diagnosis?
Obviously, I don't know the answer, but from what I do know, I'd like to think she would not change a thing. She earned a bachelor's degree, a CPA and an MBA, all while studying in the Netherlands and England.
Changes can make any life different, but I like to think there are few alternate lives that could be better than the ones we already have.
I don't know my former classmate any better now than I did last week before I learned she died, and I understand that recognizing her face wouldn't have made a difference when it came to who she was or what she meant to me. But, that doesn't mean her loss affects me any less.
I can't go back to high school and pay better attention to the ways those I encountered in passing made a difference in my life, but I can encourage teens to be more aware.
And I can try to better understand how those I barely know now can so powerfully affect me years down the road.
For that, all I can say is, "Thank you, Bonnie. I hope I never forget your face again."
Erick Rommel is a freelance writer working from Toms River, N.J.
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