Memories for Today; A Shaker Story

I want to tell you guys a story about my hometown. It's one of those places that became the beacon of diversity in Ohio. Race-sensitive groups popping up left and right and parties that are a diverse as a handful of trail mix. Shaker was a traditional public school with the best teachers, participatory parents, and students that dream and succeed each year.
It's a community that creates friends based off of interests and friendships that feel like family.
Although it's a great town some alumni leave, but others stay and start their own families in the place that they grew up. And without fail, each Wednesday before Thanksgiving former Shaker students gather together at the neighborhood watering hole to exchange old stories and make promises on meeting up in their new cities they call home.
Each year, this is pretty true -- until this year.
This year a different reunion happened just three days before the "typical one" - it was a service held in memory of one of our classmates who passed away just a week before Thanksgiving.
Since I was home for the holiday the weekend before, I also was able to attend the services where our friend Brian was laid to rest. Brian was a friend with EVERYONE -- you could tell by the smorgasbord of people that congregated at the synagogue on a crisp Sunday afternoon. Even as we were driving to the service we were trying to think of anyone that ever had a issue with him - he really was a friend to all and a happy reminder of what carefree and positivity can look like in a person. So we gathered to say goodbye on Sunday and likely to see each other again in a few days.
As anticipated this year's reunion Wednesday-pre-Thanksgiving story was different - hugs were longer, old friends declare to turn over a new leaf because for once in the town we all called home, we found our Shaker memories have an expiration date.
It was more than being happy to see people, although that might be, it made me appreciate this jumbled combination of memories and friends and connections we spent 18 years making. It made me understand how the loss of one can have this domino effect 600 miles away. But it also made me notice that the tears of sadness were also mourning the loss of innocence in Shaker.  When we would all sit around talking about things we did in high school (driving the oval, pajama parties, mocking teachers, counting how many times "Be the Best" came up in our years) that reminiscing gave us a feeling of presence. A memory is no more than a tickle of history in a present day that gives you hope that you'll make more memories tomorrow. I don't need to tell you why this Thanksgiving changed that idea, but what I will say is that this Thanksgiving gave me a new way to look at being grateful and it made me promise to make memories for today and not wait for tomorrow to remember.