This morning (besides the 'is it really Halloween today?' issue) I thought about people I've known who have died. I suppose it harkens back to that "All Soul's Day" stuff learned from 13 years of Catholic school. I feel like thinking about my friends that I loved and miss.

Aquim was a year or so behind me in school and we met in the JROTC program at the all boy school he attended. Aquim was the annoying little brother you'd want to strangle, then he'd do something so incredibly thoughtful or funny you had to laugh instead. The day he died, I was at work. I had planned to go up to the school after work the following week to ask him to save me a graduation photo. One of the other girls turned up the radio in the office and said, "You have to listen to this." The announcer said that a teenage boy had been stabbed to death in a fight and said his full name on the air. I started shaking and said, "I know that guy." His death was the first I'd experienced as an "adult" of a contemporary.

I'm really quite lucky, sort of. A girl in my high school class died in childbirth and a guy I'd gone to grade school with had a heart attack at college, but they weren't close friends. Death did not come to trouble me again until Michelle.

Michelle and I worked for the same company. I'd known her for years and had always thought she was a suck up and slacker. When I returned to work after Melani's promotion, I was working side by side with Michelle. Michelle wasn't by any stretch my best friend, but we drew on each other's strengths and were able to compensate for each other's weaknesses. I loved doing reports but hate math; Michelle could do the math but hated writing reports. We worked it out so that each of us did the part we liked best. We'd walk down the street to get coffee sometimes. When I bought my car, I dragged her to the window to see it parked in the lot below.

Before I left the department, I set up dozens of reports to run automatically so Michelle wouldn't be frustrated with them. In the note I left her to explain how they worked I said, "I'm glad I had the chance to work with you, you're like my big sister." And it was true.

Two months later, Michelle was diagnosed with bone cancer. Melani and I drove up to the hospital to see her on a Thursday evening. The three of us laughed and joked until visiting hours were done. Michelle kept the conversation flowing, she asked about all our families and about details we didn't realize she'd remember. Before we left, Michelle asked me to let some folks we'd worked with know that she was sick. I squeezed her hand. Melani and I planned to come back the next week again. The next day, I made the calls Michelle had asked me to make. Over the weekend, she slipped into a coma. Tuesday, they unplugged her life support.

I hadn't been close to death that way and it saddened and depressed me. When I got home from work that day, I cried and cried. After Michelle died, I had to sleep with the lights on. I'd get up and walk around the apartment, touching things, sometimes logging into the big game at 3AM, to make sure there were still people I cared about in the world.

Michelle and Aquim each came to me in dreams afterwards, when I was still depressed over them. In my dream about Aquim, we were both children and walked hand in hand up the stairway of his school where he was stabbed. He told me it hadn't hurt. A couple of months after Michelle died, I dreamt that we were in the hospital's hallway and she was standing up, not hooked to any machines. She said she was fine now and sorry she couldn't spend more time with me but there were so many others she had to chat with. After each dream, I woke up feeling comforted. They'd taken the time out of their busy afterlife to talk to me :-)

Last year was tougher; there were too many people all in one stretch of time. I know that I had a dream about Nora; I have no idea what it was or what she said, but in the same way, I woke up feeling much better.

Anyway, I thought about them this morning when I was getting dressed. They probably all think I look stupid today. My tail is sagging and it keeps pulling the rest of my shirt down in the back. I hope they keep their laughter to themselves.