One year ago today...

I lost an old elementary school classmate.

This is a class picture of us in the 1st Grade. I'm in the second row, third from left, wearing the red sweatshirt. Sam is seated in the front row, third from left, wearing a red sweatshirt.

I remember Sam being full of energy and crazy ideas. He grew up to be a professional skater and computer engineer.

A group of us, including Sam, met for a reunion back in the Spring of 2007.

We all said we wanted to meet up again as a group, to hang out more. A couple of people were able to, but most of us couldn't get our act together to actually make it happen. Time passed.

Then, a year ago, I got an email from my classmates telling me that Sam had died in a bicycle accident on the Manhattan Bridge. That week we met up again for his memorial service.

The picture above is a pic from our reunion back in the Spring of 2007. Sam is the one in the hat, looking cool.

It's sad. He was 27 years old.

Today we all remember Sam in our own way.