Who remembers?

It often happens that I find myself melancholy about those who are gone. It strikes at different times and with different intensities. October always seems to be one of those times. It's Halloween, the month I left and returned from a mission, the month I met my wife, and the month I found out a childhood friend was gone. 

The one that strikes at time the most poignantly is the last one. It was someone who I had lost contact with. Not entirely but partially. We had reconnected online. A couple weeks later a message told me he was gone.

That one stuck with me. It was the first suicide close to me. Sadly they've kept coming. And with the subtle, comfortable melancholy of autumn, I remember. Quite easily compared to some others. 

Every year it makes me wonder who else remembers? I'm still in touch with quite a few of my childhood friends that would remember him. But not that often. Not often enough. So I don't know if they go through the same emotions the same thoughts. Do they have the same memories, of times in backyards having water fights, reading in the corner of an elementary classroom, playing on the playground. 

Who remembers them? If not me?

I want to remember them better myself. I don't want to wait for October, or Veterans Day, or Memorial Day to remember. I don't want it to be dark and invested in the clouds. I want to remember the sunshine too. Especially now.

Part of that may mean turning to those who remember as well. I know that friends come and go in our lives. I've lived long enough on this planet to shed the naive notion that we'll all be best friends forever and ever. We grow, we change, we move, we work, we make families. Relationships change. That doesn't mean we just discard them. That doesn't mean we don't make an effort to stay connected. Even on the periphery for a time.

I need to be better about that. I keep coming back in my life to this idea of reaching out more often. Of restoring some friendships and relationships. I need to seriously continue to try to act on that. Mean it. Maybe that will increase the memories of the good times, or at the very least make some new ones.