It started yesterday when I was scrolling through Facebook updates.  I have too many “friends” and “like” too many pages to ever do a thorough reading.  But in my scrolling,  something popped out.  A person I didn’t know had posted photos of one of my FB friends.  And next to it the letters RIP.

Let’s call him "Carl."  He’s one of my FB “friends” that come from my teenage era. I graduated from a small town high school the same year that Carl did. I didn’t really know Carl. Oh, everyone knew Carl. He was a track and football star.  And, yes, I’m sure he signed my yearbook and I probably said hi to him in the hallway many times. But I didn’t know Carl.

It was only a year or so ago that I friended him on FB. I wondered then why he never posted a photo of himself, just some icon or avatar.  And he rarely posted any news.

One day, months after the initial friending, there was a photo posted. Carl in a wheelchair.  Carl in a wheelchair . . . with no legs.  The irony hit me immediately—the medal-winning sprinter without legs.

I am not in touch with folks from my high school era.  Probably because I left that town the day I went to college—and that was one day after my parents moved across the state from the town.  I had nothing to go back to so I didn’t.  Except for my 20^th reunion.

And no, I didn’t stay in touch with anyone after that reunion.  Lives are so different.  It didn’t seem possible. Or important. I live in my present time, my present home, my present world of friends and relationships.

But I deduced, from FB postings, that diabetes must have robbed Carl of his legs.  And later on, I saw through a post or two, that he’d been outfitted with new legs.

But yesterday, the words jumped out at me. RIP Carl.  And then the terse addendum—evidently Carl had died about three months ago. And just now, people are discovering that. passing

Family members evidently didn’t know. Former classmates didn’t know. Those who called him friend didn’t know. 

And the news came to all of them through Facebook.

Someone posted a link to his obituary, the saddest I have ever read. It told the day of Carl’s birth. And the day of his death. That's all.

And so Carl passed on, without a ripple in the pool of time. Alone. Unnoticed.

I do not know his story at all. But I am sure there was pain as well as loneliness.  I hope there was enough love in his memory to buffer that strange ride to the beyond.

Rest in Peace, Carl, and all the others who slip out of our sight without a notice.

Peace.