I’m cleaning up my deviatnart account and came accross this. Wrote it June 21, 2001. That would have been just after my sophomore year of high school. I took it off deviant art but really wanted to save it somewhere, so here it is. I used to be able to write.
Every day seemed to be the same old daily grind until that one day, the day that my new neighbors moved in. I remember the day so well, I was ten years old and it was a sunny summer day. I ran over to their house to greet them hoping that I would finally have someone my age to play with. The sound of the doorbell was piercing as I pushed the small button in next to the door. Then, to my surprise, when the door opened there was another boy standing there about my age looking eye to eye with me. I proceeded to ask him if he wanted to play and ever since then we have been the best of friends.
It’s been eight years since then, Andrew and I are now seniors in high school. We’ve been by each other’s side since that day I rang his doorbell, through all of the girlfriends and other problems that have come up along the way. This whole time, though, I’ve felt like he has been hiding something from me. Whenever I’ve tried to talk to him about certain subjects he seems to withdraw from me. For example there was this one time when we were over at Kara’s house sitting outside under a starlit night around the bonfire just talking about anything and everything.
“Andrew what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” we had already gone around everyone else in the group and Andrew was the last to be asked.
There was a silence from Andrew as he thought about what to say, “It would have to be that time last summer when Paul and I were out at two in the morning and decided to have a swimming contest across the lake.” Everyone laughed and sat back reminiscing. I looked over to Andrew trying to remember the look on his face when I beat him to the other side of the lake but he looked different. He had this pre-occupied look upon his face and when he noticed me looking over at him he stood up and walked over to get something from the cooler.
At the time I just seemed to brush it off as Andrew thinking through some of the troubles he had been having at school and we spent the rest of the night talking away while looking between the bonfire, my friends and the stars. Right before we all left, Andrew said one more thing to us; I remember Andrew was able to come up with very deep comments that you just couldn’t forget at the perfect times. “When we go on next year always remember where you came from. Just look up to the sky and forget your surroundings and you’ll be right back here with the rest of us.”
That night was one of the most relaxing of this year that I can remember. While we were all there nothing seemed to matter. The world couldn’t touch us and the peace we felt was amazing, I hope that Andrew is feeling that now. I know that every time I look up to the night sky I will think of him and his simple message. This is about the time when Andrew would put in one of those deep thoughts, I’m not as good at them as he was but I thought one up ahead of time.
“Never overlook anything that you find unusual. Ask questions and find out what’s wrong. It will only be a few minutes of your life but could add years to theirs.” With that I stepped down from the pulpit and returned to my seat, holding back the tears that I should be letting out. From this day on I will never forget the lessons that Andrew has taught me. I wasn’t crying tears of sorrow but tears of happiness for the time I was able to know him and for all he was able to teach me about life. I only wish he could have taught me more.