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Chris Kuhn

Editor, skirt! Tampa Bay

I'm an outspoken thirtysomething who has lived in the Tampa Bay area since 1992, full of useless facts on just about every facet of pop culture. I'm passionate about vegetarianism without passing judgment. I love to laugh. If we can't talk politics, music, movies, sports, TV or current events, you'...

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The Email Attachment

Chris, Editor for skirt! Tampa Bay

I've been thinking about something for the past four or five days and I can't seem to shake it. It all started with a simple email from a high school classmate.

I've written before about my 20th high school reunion happening this fall and how disinterested I am to attend. That hasn't changed. Some days I wake up and still question my decision, but overall, when I stop to think about what I'd gain, it just doesn't seem worth it to me personally. I'm a different person, I've moved on. I don't really know those people anymore and they've never met me as I am - today.

One of my classmates sent out an email to several of us who've been located to tell us about an upcoming alumni meeting to discuss the event, how we can boost attendance, additional planning details, and so on. Attached to the email were two documents - a list of students who were considered Missing in Action, that no one has heard from or knows anything about their whereabouts. And the deceased list.

I stopped in my tracks when I saw this second document attached. I wasn't sure if i wanted to open it. I am after all only 38 and though I knew of one person who had died before the 10th reunion from an illness, the idea that there could be other names on that list truly frightened me. I saved the file on my hard drive and moved on to other emails.

Finally, before I went to work, I decided to open the attachment. I found myself even closing my eyes after I double-clicked on the file (can you believe I did that?) I really feared what I might find. It was as if someone had sent me a document called 'how you will die and on what day.' You'd want to know but not really. I didn't want to find people on that list who had been good friends of mine but with whom I'd simply lost touch. But frankly, I didn't want to see anybody on that list at all.

I opened my eyes. Five people. Five of my classmates had already died since high school graduation. Four since the last reunion. And I knew them all. I wasn't best friends with any of them, but I knew them. Most of them had been pretty nice to me in school, one not so nice. In this search engine age, of course my next order of business was to look them up on Yahoo! (nope, I don't Google) and see if I could locate any info about their deaths. One of them, Fred, had been a great wrestler in school and an ROTC member - I think he was voted Most Talkative or something...he had gone on to become a Captain in the military, worked on a documentary with another classmate when he got back from the war showing his own handheld footage from Iraq and sharing his disillusionment and anger over the experience (I will have to find this documentary!) He had died unexpectedly when he was 35 but couldn't find out what happened.

Another guy, Shawn, had sat next to me in the yearbook posing incredulously as we were chosen for "Teacher's Favorite.” He was a smart, cocky, good-looking guy who appeared to have everything going for him and handed to him (at least to an outsider). And when I researched him, he’d evidently built a tremendous wealth from the real estate market in the 90s and was a millionaire when he died in a freakish private plane crash when he was 31 or 32. How bizarre.

I found some information about a few of the others but I felt numb. I spent the rest of the day and off and on the next few days just thinking of it – for no reason. I’d be working and lose focus for a moment and think, man, look at all that these guys accomplished and then they were done. Just like that.

The concept of mortality has always had a strong hold on me. I probably sound like a broken record, having written on the subject recently with the untimely death of Tim Russert. It’s been a hot topic for me ever since my teenage years researching the great philosophers and their views on death and after death. Maybe it was because I had formed my own personal views on death early on (during my sophomore year in high school) and finding William Cullen Bryant’s poem Thanatopsis was somehow reaffirming to me. I’ve always believed live for the now and take advantage of the moments you’re walking around on this Earth. Yet I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I frequently don’t live that belief. I’ll finish up a project I’m working on which in the grand scheme of things is frankly pretty unimportant rather than leave it and hang out with my dog. I’ll pass on get-togethers because I have to finish up some work or run errands that could probably be handled at another time.

I never dreamt that opening up a document could have such a hold on me. Now if only I could take something away from this discovery and apply it to my own life.

Cherish your Sunday today. Hug a loved one, read a good book, take a walk you’ve never taken and enjoy the weather – whether it’s soft, sparkling rain showers or warm, penetrating rays of sunshine. Cherish your day.