I got an e-mail yesterday from an old high-school classmate with Don Crabb’s obituary attached.  There was an empty feeling of sadness that hit me suddenly, a short punch in the proverbial gut.  He was only 44.  My age.  We graduated from high school together.

I can’t claim that I knew Don well.  Like so many of my classmates from high school, we went off in search of our own adventures and lost touch.

When I discovered the delights of the Internet several years ago, I was entranced with this amazing world.  And just a few years later, I started searching for those old classmates I had lost, those I remembered with fondness.  And I found Don’s e-mail address.

He answered with the kindness and wit I remembered he had.  He gave me his phone number, encouraging me to call him.

I wish I had.  At the time, I was broke.  And then, in one of those twists that now seems odd, I lost the e-mail and the phone number.

I could have e-mailed him again.  I meant to.  I meant to call.  I wanted to touch base again with someone I remembered as a decent human being during those dark days of high school where few can be called such.

The Don I remember from school was an interesting mixture of things – kind and acerbic, witty and supportive, intelligent and open.  He was always a very large man, even before he was a man, seemingly without rancor but with a clarity and spark of mind that went quite beyond the provincial high school we attended.

What I have read that has been said of him elsewhere since I heard the news of his death confirms that, at heart, he remained the Don I knew way back when.  The only thing that may have changed is that he apparently learned to not back down from criticism of his writing or take it too seriously.

I have a few favorite memories of Don.  One is from 6th grade, as he portrayed a preacher and I the bride in a classroom re-enactment of Rutherford B. Hayes and Lucy Ware Webb’s wedding.  Another is when he talked me into joining the afterschool debate club in high school, where I, a very disconnected and lost soul, tried to connect to something larger than myself.  That I failed to continue is of no concern; that Don encouraged me to try is what matters.

And the third memory is of his articles in the high school literary magazine that a friend and I edited and published.  Another friend of mine e-mailed me and said, “You may well have been his first publisher.”  It’s a strange thought.

The first article was a wonderful and slightly acerbic criticism of the most major local polluter in our town.  To criticize the paper mill was tantamount to blasphemy in our little town.  I thought it was wonderful, but as editor and publisher, I had to ask Don, “Are you sure you want this published?  You know you’re going to get a lot of criticism.”  He insisted he wanted it published.  I ran the usual disclaimer at the bottom, although I agreed with his position wholeheartedly.

The fallout from that article was swift and intense.  I still have no idea what he might have suffered for expressing his opinions.  What I do know is that in the second issue of the literary magazine, he submitted another article.  That second article was a scared mea culpa response to whatever he suffered as a result of the first one.

I like to think that his experience with that taught him to stand by his opinions and not back down.  I like to think that it helped make him the great writer and speaker on computer matters that he turned out to be.

I wish I had called him.  I wish I had known that he had five cats, and that we had talked about our respective furry friends.  I wish I had not dropped the ball, and assumed he would be there forever.

None of us is here forever.  Our lives are finite.  We do not ever know when the road will run out for each of us, and we will have to take that plunge into whatever lay beyond.

I grieve for Don’s parents, his fiancée, his cats, and his friends.  I grieve for the loss of someone who actually did something good in this world, and for the fact that he is gone too soon.  And I grieve for my own recognition of that dark face of mortality.

Don, I drink a toast to you.  And I hope that, wherever you are tonight, there are computers and people who love them as you did.
 

Ginger-lyn Summer
2000
 
 

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