gone, but not forgotten

A few weeks ago a much loved Australian YF died in a car crash, thought to be intentional. Due to facebook the word quickly spread as F/friends shared their grief, loss and pain. But also, as the days went past, the quirky stories, the photographs, the happy memories - a wonderful testimony to the memory of Juchie. Photos I had already uploaded of Australia YM in Perth 2005 were revisited and tagged with his name.

Prompted by this I started the hunt for photos from the WGYF Year Ahead Event in Glenthorne, Sept 2004 which Juchie had attended along with a few other Aussie YFs. So far I've only found a handful of them so I'll need to retrieve another box at some point. However it did spur me on to upload some other photos I'd been meaning to scan and share for some time. So I embarked on my YFCC collection.

Having attended from 1987-1992 there are a fair few photos, and so far I've scanned and uploaded 1987 and 1988. Going through them is not only a huge trip down memory lane, but a stark reminder of how many others of my generation of YFs have had their lives cut short one way or another. I can't but wonder as I post the pictures how many others in them have died that somehow I haven't heard about yet.

It is actually quite disconcerting to add up the number of friends who have lost their lives young, going right back to school days. By the time I was 18 I'd lost at least five friends to a mixture of suicide, injury and medical complications, yet I was yet to lose a grandparent and the only family deaths I'd experienced were great aunts and uncles that I'd barely known.

A couple of days ago the toddler brother of one of our kindergarten children was run over in his own driveway and killed, another tragic loss, especially for the family but also the local community. I can't help but feel for the youngsters who will no doubt long remember Kohen in the way that I remember Richard - someone who by this time I would quite probably have otherwise forgotten about had it not been for him being my first friend to die.

We don't forget them, they stay with us as William Penn puts so memorably, and as long as we remember they are never truely gone.