John died 3 days before the start of our senior year. I couldn't go to the funeral, I was just a kid then and didn't know how to handle it. I never spoke of him after his death to anyone. It is hard for a child to process the death of a peer so young. Throughout the years I have thought of John often. When they discovered the gene for Cystic Fibrosis around 1990, I smiled when I heard it on the radio. Progress. When I hear of CF patients receiving lung transplants or living to ages older than John, I smile as if a victory was won. As I sat in various science classes in college, once in a while when a lecture would be especially interesting, I would pause a moment and think, "John would have loved this.". We were lab partners in Mr. Higgins' Biology class. That's how we met. That is how we became friends. John had quite an assortment of fountain pens. He collected them in various colored inks. John and I made up stories about Herbie, the lab rat in our Biology text books. A few years ago,I'm not sure how many, 6 or 8, as I was cleaning out old boxes of stuff, I came across some old papers, notebooks and such that I had kept. As I began to leaf through one of the old notebooks, I came across a sheet of paper that I had never seen before. On it was written in green ink, undeniably from a fountain pen, "Herbie loves you, Herbie will miss you.". As I sat there on the floor looking at this paper, absolutely stunned by my find, I realized that John must have stuffed it in my notebook. All those years ago. I still don't speak of John to anyone. But every time I visit Connecticut, without fail, I go to the cemetery to his grave site. And I talk to him for a few moments.
Renee Durant
John died 3 days before the start of our senior year. I couldn't go to the funeral, I was just a kid then and didn't know how to handle it. I never spoke of him after his death to anyone. It is hard for a child to process the death of a peer so young. Throughout the years I have thought of John often. When they discovered the gene for Cystic Fibrosis around 1990, I smiled when I heard it on the radio. Progress. When I hear of CF patients receiving lung transplants or living to ages older than John, I smile as if a victory was won. As I sat in various science classes in college, once in a while when a lecture would be especially interesting, I would pause a moment and think, "John would have loved this.". We were lab partners in Mr. Higgins' Biology class. That's how we met. That is how we became friends. John had quite an assortment of fountain pens. He collected them in various colored inks. John and I made up stories about Herbie, the lab rat in our Biology text books. A few years ago,I'm not sure how many, 6 or 8, as I was cleaning out old boxes of stuff, I came across some old papers, notebooks and such that I had kept. As I began to leaf through one of the old notebooks, I came across a sheet of paper that I had never seen before. On it was written in green ink, undeniably from a fountain pen, "Herbie loves you, Herbie will miss you.". As I sat there on the floor looking at this paper, absolutely stunned by my find, I realized that John must have stuffed it in my notebook. All those years ago. I still don't speak of John to anyone. But every time I visit Connecticut, without fail, I go to the cemetery to his grave site. And I talk to him for a few moments.
.
Herbie misses you, John.