The longer you live, the more buildings you know your way around get torn down, and the more people you used to know get buried. They may be good friends, and you parted in friendship but moved to another state. You may only brush elbows and part ways, and you never see or hear from them again, but you remember them for some odd reason.

A while back I did a web search for a woman I once asked out on a date, decades ago when I lived in Florida (she turned me down). She had died of Covid.

The other day, I recalled a fellow I knew only slightly, in one of the three colleges I attended (I won’t say just which one). I wondered what kind of life he’d lived, because his prospects hadn’t looked good from where I stood.

The main thing I remembered about him was his name. I won’t tell you his surname, but it’s one of those Germanic monikers that basically waves a flag and whistles, inviting mean little boys to make a dirty joke out of it. I pitied him for having such a name hung on him at birth, and always assumed the name probably had a lot to do with his personality. Because he was, to put it mildly, a “difficult” guy. Rebellious against the rules. Touchy. Quick to anger. Vicious with an insult. He wasn’t popular with his classmates at all.

I remember making a conscious choice to be civil to him. To speak to him pleasantly, and with respect. And (at least as I remember it), the last time he spoke with me, he treated me in a civil way also. I took some satisfaction in that. The list of social situations I’ve handled well in my life is, after all, a short one.

Anyway, it turns out he’s dead too, just a few months ago. The obit didn’t say what he died of, but I studied it with interest. He seems to have found a place in the world. A steady, long-time job, family, friends, pets.

The obituary said nothing about a marriage or children, though.

I suppose we were brothers, in a way. He didn’t fit in in one way, I in another.

Anyway, I hope he found grace.