I haven’t thought about this in over thirty years.
Which is hilarious, because thirty years in middle age is basically:
five minutes,
seven lifetimes,
and one lower-back injury.
But now that life has slowed down —
now that I finally have the time to sort through all the old memory filing cabinets I’ve avoided like taxes —
this one popped out.
Still bright.
Still loud.
Still warm.
His name was Bryan Rosen.
I’d known him since elementary school.
Every school has one kid like him —
stitched together from sunshine, secondhand denim, and a soul that seemed to have its own peace treaty with the universe.
Bryan called himself “The Hippy Jew.”
Not for attention.
Just accuracy.
He was kind before it was cool to be kind.
He made kindness look effortless — like some people breathe air and some people breathe goodness.
He carried a guitar more faithfully than most adults carry their sanity.
I can still see him on the high school lawn —
long hair, Lennon glasses, cross-legged, strumming away like his music was keeping the school held together by G-chord duct tape.
We once had a school walkout.
A protest for… something? Democracy? Better lunch meat?
No idea.
But I remember him:
the calm center in a teenage hurricane, anchoring chaos with a song.
After graduation, I’d see him at the Dairy Barn —
that magical suburban kiosk where milk, ice cream, and emotional support cigarettes were sold without judgment.
He’d hand people their change like he was blessing them.
We’d talk.
Laugh.
Say “See you next week.”
Then one day…
there wasn’t a next week.
He died at twenty-three.
Twenty-three — that impossible age when you think you have so much time you can afford to waste half of it being dramatic.
Where you assume you get decades to grow up, screw up, fix things, become someone.
His death cracked something in me.
Back then, I could not understand how someone so fully alive could just… not be.
Now?
Now I’ve lived long enough to realize I’ve officially passed the age I once thought people were supposed to be “old enough” to die.
Now sunsets hit me differently —
less like scenery and more like inventory management.
It’s been thirty years.
Yet I can still hear his voice.
Still see him hunched over his guitar.
Still feel that gentle, effortless goodness that clung to him like a second skin.
And slowing down — finally slowing down — taught me this:
We’re all just visitors here.
Some stay for a blink.
Some for a season.
A rare few leave an echo that follows you through your whole life.
Bryan was an echo.
Remembering him didn’t make me sad.
It made me awake.
It made me take a good, uncomfortable look at the things I’ve poured my energy into —
the worrying,
the comparing,
the striving,
the schedules,
the noise,
the nonsense.
And I finally see:
Life isn’t about how long it is.
It’s about how deeply it echoes.
If I’m lucky —
if I stay awake —
if I slow down enough to actually live my days —
maybe my life will echo too.
So here’s to Bryan —
proof that a short life can cast a long, holy shadow.
And here’s to today —
the only guaranteed, undeniable, breathtaking miracle we get.
What a gift it is to still be here.
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