Excerpt From My Journal

I was TA'ing this morning and writing as well, because TA'ing isn't much more than copy machine adventures.

I feel strange. It's the kind of day when you really find out who everyone is.

We wear blue ribbons for {Blaund's brother}'s blue eyes. I'm wearing a black dress over a gray shirt and {my sister}'s soft black skinny jeans. My boots because I want some pink for Blaund.

I saw the blue ribbons around trees and street lamps. Blue ribbon for his blue eyes. What about Smile, because {Blaund's brother} did? That's what August says. Wear yellow like Kahler or remember how wonderful a person was.

Maybe he was annoying. Maybe he was stupid or had a temper but we won't know because we only know the good things.


{Blaund's brother} may be dead, but that doesn't mean he wasn't alive too.

"He doesn't wanna talk about it," says Danica {of Blaund}.

Death or

Life?

I told Literally I was going to walk today, not wait. In fact, I just checked my {mail}, and he said it was OK and he sent me something

subject: {Blaund's brother}

How's Blaund?

and I logged out because I could not reply I could not reply I could not reply.

I haven't seen Blaund all morning.

He is going to feel so fake. How can anything matter?

So this is what happens. Sandy Hook. A mall in Arizona. Why would you cause such grief? I'm so out and freezing and I didn't know {Blaund's brother} any other way than through pictures.

He's got blue eyes and Blaund's face with a sideways smile that Heavenly Father is close to now. Grief sounds like brief but {Blaund's family}s' will last forever.

Blue ribbon's not enough not enough and I am wondering why I want to walk away today.

Touched by someone whose life I didn't know about until 36 hours after it ended.

Gone Smile

I don't know how to write this.

Today I got on my gmail and found out by way of Tangorine that ... well, remember Blaund Viff? The guy whose birthday party I was too depressed to go to? I'll start with telling you a few things about Blaund.

I met him three years ago, in fifth grade. Di had this huge crush on him. That is not what we're going to talk about. I met Blaund better this year, when he sat next to me in Science and Business. We made inside jokes like, pink makes my face pointy. We laughed and laughed about dumb things and he always won peppermint contests. He's sporty. He plays water polo, and he's one of those rare boys who are always happy and never violent or anything. He's super sweet and hilarious, and everybody loves him. 

He has a brother. He had a brother.

Blaund's brother is dead.

--since eighteen hours ago, I know something now, know something now, that I didn't before--

I never met his brother, but looking at all the pictures of him online now I think I did know him, in Blaund. He looks almost the same. He has the same face and the same blond hair and everybody's talking about the blue eyes of that angel who is really an angel now.

--flowers pile up in the worst way, no one knows what to say about a beautiful boy who died--

He's smiling in the pictures but nobody I know is smiling now because freezing freezing freezing cold is all I know now. Ever since I heard about it. Thought about it. Couldn't cry about it, because I am frozen in a kind of ice colder than I ever knew.

You hear about this all the time. People going. People going to go. People GONE. But it isn't until it's happening, happened, right now yesterday today for the next forever that you realize how painful it is. 

--you've got a face for a smile you know--

I never met his brother, but I know his smile. I don't think a smile like that will light up the world for a while.