While reading the Indianapolis Star this morning, I came across a section entitled ‘Christmas memoriams’. It’s an area of the paper where folks can put a little remembrance and maybe a picture of a deceased loved one. Memorial Day in May is another time of year when these same kind of dedications show up near the obituary pages.
This is not a custom that I ever gave much thought to but I can see why someone would want to do it. Christmas can be such a lonely time of the year.
Today’s pages contain some very nice sentiments to mothers, fathers and grandparents but many of the dedications are also made to young people who never got to live out their three score and ten. Being somewhat of a curious nature, I always wonder what might have happened.
There’s one to a beautiful girl named Kristan who died at the age of 20. I wonder what it might have been that ended her life; an accident perhaps or a terrible disease. Anorexia crossed my mind for no particular reason other than what I read about young girls habits but based on the picture, it probably wasn’t anything like that. Maybe she died in childbirth or God forbid, an angry boyfriend took her life. Who’s to know except the people who knew her. Nonetheless, there might be a good story in there.
Here’s another. A nice looking young man in a cowboy hat. 21 years old. And another, aged 22, wearing a baseball cap and nicknamed ‘Dude’ . I’m thinking auto accidents given the statistics on young male drivers. But once again, who’s to know?
The only thing I get out out of this whole thing is that even though it’s hard to grasp, every day can start out to be your last.
One dedication I didn’t find was a piece on a young man named Ronald. For years, it seemed like any holiday that I opened the paper to one of these sections, I found his picture and a nice verse about his life. It’s not like I was looking for it or anything. His picture just sort of jumped out at me after seeing it two or three times; probably because he sort of looked like a classmate of mine.
I don’t want you to think that I purposely went searching for this stuff. It was just accidental. I didn’t look at the paper every holiday but whenever I did, there was Ronald staring back at me. I think it was his parents that put it in the paper but I don’t remember for sure.
Anyway, Ronald wasn’t there today. We’ve been retired and traveling for six years so it’s probably been that long since I looked at one of these pages. Maybe in that time, his parents finally came to grips with Ronald’s passing or perhaps they passed on themselves.
In this age of Google searches and 24/7 news channels, it seems like there is a way to find an answer for any kind of question you might want answered. But not in this case. I’m never going to know who Ronald was, how he died or why he’s not in the papers anymore.
It’s a little disconcerting.
Merry Christmas, anyway.

