The Healing Journey

April 29, 2025

While Alex was cleaning out his bookcase, per orders of his wife, he came upon a book whose pages were foxing and worn. It was a second-hand college textbook titled “Copy and Compose: A Guide to Prose Style,” which he had bought from his high school buddy Warren somewhere back in the distant past, the very distant past. He leafed through the pages and saw notations and underlining on page after page after page … which meant the resale value was probably minus $10 on the open market, even if they still used the book.

Inside the cover, Warren had written his name. Over the years, he had lost track of him, until he heard from a friend of a friend that he had died in his early 50s. But there was more. He had taken his own life. And that piece of information left Alex confused and heartbroken.

Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine a set of circumstances where his friend would take his life. Not the fellow he had known in high school. But life can be hard. He had another high school classmate whose life fell apart in college after he developed mental health illness, and things just never were the same again. High school seemed like such a distant, idyllic time until the tragedy of life intruded and changed things forever. That Sunday before Mass, he walked to the back of the church and lit a candle for both of them, got on his knees and prayed for the repose of their souls … and the day they would meet again.
©J Pisani

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