There are people who pass through our lives quietly, almost without effort, and yet they leave an imprint that lasts far longer than we ever expect. I served with someone like that—steady, good‑natured, the kind of person you don’t forget even when the years start piling up. After our time in the service, he went back to his hometown in upstate New York and stepped into the construction company his father had built. It was the sort of life that fit him: familiar streets, honest work, a place where he belonged.
When his father died, he took over the business. I always imagined him doing well, carrying on the family name, maybe raising a family of his own. Life moved me forward, and I assumed it moved him forward too. We lost touch, as people often do, and I told myself I’d look him up someday.
A few years ago, I finally did. Just a simple internet search—nothing more than a moment of curiosity mixed with nostalgia. I expected to find a business listing or maybe a photo from a local event. Instead, I found an obituary. He had died in an auto accident about eight years earlier. A drunk driver hit him head‑on. He never regained consciousness.
I sat there staring at the screen, feeling the weight of all the time that had slipped by unnoticed. It wasn’t guilt exactly, but something quieter and heavier—a recognition that I had let a good person drift out of my life without ever meaning to. And now the chance to reconnect was gone.
Moments like that have a way of shifting your perspective. They remind you that life isn’t just about the big milestones or the dramatic turns. It’s also about the people who walked beside you for a while, the ones who mattered even if you didn’t realize how much at the time. They remind you to reach out when someone crosses your mind, to say the thing you’ve been meaning to say, to appreciate the connections that make the journey feel less solitary.
Time moves in only one direction, but reflection lets us honor the people who shaped us along the way. Even the ones we never got to say goodbye to.
TomT2.0 