DAVE

When I decided to organize a class reunion after 46 years, I got a lot of joy from it. I recall seeing people for the first time and wondering why I didn’t keep in touch a little better. I saw some great success stories, reacquainted myself with some wonderful people that I wished I had stayed in touch with.

The joy I mentioned above has a price. Sometimes it brings you bad news too. Sometimes you wish you didn’t do what I did, just so the sadness doesn’t meet up with the happiness and crash. The sound of the crash is sometimes too much to bear.



I found a wonderful couple that dated in high school, and became husband and wife. David and Joanne Z. They were everyone’s friends and no one’s enemy. When I met them later in years, they still had stayed on the fine side of decency.

They were a very happy and compatible couple. She was always a lady to respect, and he having the class he did, fell in love and married her. They were good people then, they stayed that way.



Dave and Joanne had a great time at the reunion, renewing old acquaintances and sharing their life stories with other classmates, and the laughter was loud and long for all of us. There were no grudges or animosities to relive, just genuine happiness to see each other.

Dave had taken a great interest in the ceremonies the day before at the high school in the tree planting for our classmates who had passed on, and the building that had burned to the ground.


In times of joy you hold your breath to wait for the other shoe to drop, and sometimes it does. As we planned our reunion we heard of those who had died, were dying, or were about to die. It hurt to hear it. We heard about those who had personal tragedies in their lives, what with themselves and their children or even grandchildren.

But life goes on, and we try to make the best of it.

Then after the reunion, Dave got sick, very sick and was hospitalized. Suddenly, Joanne his brave wife, took on the battle to get Dave well, the long hospital and rehab visits, the fighting with the staff at the rehab center, because of her deep and realistic concerns about Dave’s treatment. We all offered prayers of help, or anything we could to ease the burden for our classmates, but Joanne was a trooper and carried on with her family.



Dave was in the hospital and rehab for all of the summer and most of fall. In contraptions, unable to eat or drink, living on intravenous (if you can call that living), and fighting as hard as he could.

Dave was a proud man, didn’t want his classmates to see him the way he was, didn’t even want his children to know it!

My wife, not being a classmate of mine, went to the icebreaker the night before the reunion at a local bar-restaurant, and sat in the crowded room for the most part alone on a chair by herself. She watched as I made the rounds thanking people for coming, and as she sat there, a stranger came over to her, sat next to her, and introduced himself. It was Dave, doing what he did best, making people feel invited, wanted and warm, but most of all, happy to meet him. She related the incident, and I took it in stride, realizing, what else did I expect from that gentleman? That he was.

Then one night, while Dave was fighting for his life, the end came. Joanne called me and asked in a trembling voice if I would alert everyone of Dave’s passing, and then related in grief filled tones the rest of the sadness.

She is grateful that we had the reunion, for Dave’s sake, and I am grateful I did it with the magnificent crew I had helping me. I wanted the reunion to get our youth back, if only for a moment’s time in a brief lifetime we all share on this earth.

Dave and Joanne were a part of the fabric that was woven, which made me a classmate of theirs, and all the great and wonderful people on the committee and those who came form great distances, to reunite once more.

There will never be another Dave, but that is as it should be. There is no replacement for gold. There is a wonderful reminder in his children and in his wonderful wife, who will remind us of that loving couple and their goodness, as long as we live as classmates.

Goodbye Dave, Mr. Z, whole and decent man that you still are, even in death.