It has taken me nearly a year to “get around to” a small task. Reading the list of the dead from the opening shot of the war. It was not a pleasant thing to do. At each scroll I expected to see some name jump out at me.
None did.
Oh, there was one possible, a person with the same name and age as someone I went to Coraopolis High School with. But it is not likely he’d have been in financial services in New York and there was no hit on the name when I searched the old home town.
It doesn’t mean there weren’t any people I knew in the list. I just didn’t spot any. You can’t ever know, Not really. Old girlfriends get married and change their names; people vanish from a “crowd” and a time. Names and faces become indistinct with time. I may yet hear sad news at some gathering of old friends,.but at least the names I most worried about were not there.
My biggest fear was assuaged by a hole in the list of the dead from the New York Fire Department. A hole where a name I knew wasn’t to be found.
It is good to know I will listen and enjoy the craic with Tony DeMarco again as he fiddles away at his weekly Session at Paddy Reilly’s.
I think I’ll just give him a hug next time over.
