My family moved across school district lines halfway through my high school career. This created a disconnect in my life in terms of high school -- I was no longer considered a member of the graduating class of only a few dozen students that I had been part of for 10 years, and officially became a member of a graduating class of several hundred students that I was only part of for two years.

I didn't get to know very many people during those two years. First off, I'm a very shy person by nature. But secondly, it just seemed pointless to me at the time to establish bonds with people that Iknew I would only know for less than two years. However I did get to know a handful of people well enough to think of them as friends.

Flash forward 20 years.

Since I was home sick with a cold today, I got bored and started googling the names of several people from both of my high schools. Most came up with nothing, a few people did turn up. But then I made a very disconcerting find.

There was one fella who was probably the person who came closest to being what I could call my "best friend" during my senior year in high school. We always hung out an lunch, I went to his house a time or two, and we roomed together on a school-sponsored trip to St. Louis. He was very intelligent, seemed destined for a career in biochemistry, and built a holography studio as an extracurricular class project. Together he and I pulled various pranks at school, such as placing small contact explosives all over the school during lunch hour so that they'd go off when people came back to their lockers after lunch. (Ahh, the things you could get away with in the pre-Columbine/pre-Heathers days!)

I found out today, in my searching, that he died a little over a year ago.

What's odd about this is that he is someone I have tried to reconnect with, several times, over the years, and always been unable to find him.

It's a very strange feeling. I should be sad, but I'm not feeling it. I am disturbed and down about it. But I just don't know how to react. How are you supposed to feel when find out someone you were once close to, but haven't seen in 20 years, has been dead for over a year?

Rest in peace, Kris.