*Some names have been changed to protect the anonymity of some
characters in this story.  This should have little or no effect on the
story.  I'm just putting that out there, in case you were
wondering...*

********
               September 1994: It was a crisp, fall morning.  I woke up, unsure of
what was in store for me.  After dressing, eating breakfast, and
taking the first of many first-day-of-school pictures, I got in the
car and headed off to kindergarten.  After parking, my mom and I got
out of the car, I followed her through the gate, across the yard, and
up the front steps of the main building of Park Day School.  My
classroom was the first one on the right side of the hall, and as I
peered in through the partially open door, I could see that the room
was filled with kids and parents, just like us.  I followed her
inside, hiding behind her legs as we went in.  Recognizing a parent
she had met a week before, she walked across the room to talk to her.
Her son, Bill, also brightly redheaded, was hiding behind his mom's
leg too.
       "Hi." I said.  I looked down.  "Hi." So did he.  I turned away again.
       Thus, our friendship began.  In almost no time,  we became best
friends.  And even though I didn't really have any other friends at
school, I was happy to have  just one close one.  Our families also
became close acquaintances.  We spent a lot of time together
throughout those years.  Besides the time we spent together in
Berkeley, we often went skiing together in the winter,  day hiking in
Yosemite in the summer, and backpacking and camping near the beach  at
Pt. Reyes in spring.  We were almost inseparable, especially because
we were in the same class and we spent weekends together, the two main
components of my life.  The next year, first grade, we were in the
same class again, which made for another pretty good year of school.
       At the end of that year, however, his parents and teacher decided
that he would repeat first grade.  I didn't think that this would
cause too big a change.  We just wouldn't have class together.  I'll
still see him at lunch and on the weekends, like usual.  That next
September, I was in for a surprise.  He made other friends in his new
class --what?  impossible --and I suddenly found that he was often
busy with other people on weekends.  Feeling ignored and unsure how to
maintain this relationship, I began calling him less often.  And
though we still spent some time together, I knew that something had
changed.  I just didn't know why.  The next two years were not nearly
as enjoyable and towards the beginning of third grade, when my parents
offered to let me apply to another school, I eagerly accepted and went
to Bentley School for fourth grade, leaving the whole situation
behind.  It would be seven years before we really spoke to each other
again.
********
       Every summer from 1995 until 2003, I went to Camp Kee Tov, a Jewish
day camp in Berkeley which was run through my temple.  During the rest
of the year, I went to Hebrew school at temple twice a week.  Many
kids did both of these activities as well, so I ended up getting to
know them pretty well... or I could at least connect names with all
the faces.  That was a pretty good start.  I ended up meeting a girl
there named Rachel, though everybody called her K-B (for her last
name) since there were so many Rachels.  Throughout those years, I
must have spent thousands of hours around her, but I never really got
to know her (though the few pictures that we have found of us from
back then are pretty darn cute, so we think).  Once we finished Hebrew
school and became too old for camp, I didn't see her regularly.  It
would be a few more years until we reconnected through JYCA (Jewish
Youth for Community Action) in high school.
********
       March 2006: It was a cool, dark night.  I was driving the down
winding roads of Marin, my dad next to me in the front seat .  After
what seemed like hours and getting lost in the dark a few times, I
pulled into the parking lot of the YMCA's Pt. Bonita, where I had had
my first "new group" retreat barely a year before.  After saying bye
to my dad and putting my backpack and sleeping bag down on one of the
green, metal-frame bunk beds, I joined the rest of JYCA in the common
room.  They were still in the middle of check-in, the first part of
every JYCA gathering.  I could barely make out a face in the dark.
Although I didn't know her, she somehow seemed very familiar, but I
made nothing of it.
       The next day went as usual.  There were a few workshops, we went down
to the beach, and got some time just to hang out, do homework, or nap.
 In the early afternoon, I sat down against the wall to work on my
chemistry homework.  It wasn't very interesting.  When I finished, I
got up to take a short break.  Looking out the window, I could see two
people sitting together on the small basketball court just outside.  I
walked outside.  The metal screen door slammed itself behind me.  As I
approached  the two figures, I could see that it was Bill and the same
girl I had seen the night before.  I had heard that heard that her
name was Mel.
       "You mind if I sit with you guys?" I asked.
       "Yeah.  Sit down."  We began talking, eventually losing track of time.
       After about an hour or so, K-B, who was supposed to come get us to
come inside, joined us out on that basketball court overlooking the
vast ocean.
       I do not remember what we talked about.  My memory of that night is
pretty cloudy.  All that I can really remember is that we ended up
staying out in our sleeping bags until 3 a.m. talking, laughing,
having a good time with each other.  I wasn't sure how this had
happened.  In one night, after years of knowing these people, we had
suddenly become a cohesive group.  For the first time since I started
high school, I actually felt as though I had close friends that I
could talk to and  have a good time with.
********
       I know it sounds cheesy, but that relationship was probably the best
thing that could have happened to me in high school.  Back in
Berkeley, the four of us continued to see each other, something that
was new for me.  I wasn't used to spending much time with friends
outside of class, but I liked it.  For the rest of that year, we spent
as much time together as we could.  We ate lunch together during the
week, though most of the time we spent together was on the weekends.
       I swung my leg over the the bar, getting off my bike, and locked it
to a pole near the Downtown Berkeley BART station.  I sat down,
leaning against the glass wall of the round, brown building.  The
sound of guitar and wood pipe music filled the air as I sat there
under a clear, Saturday noon sky.  After what must have been about
five minutes, I saw Mel running towards me.  I immediately stood up,
ready to greet her.  I was very excited for that day, especially
because it had been a few weeks since we had all been together.  A few
minutes later, Bill showed up, shortly followed by K-B.  We ran up and
down the escalators a few times before we headed up to the Cal campus.
       After walking for a little while, we ended up on Bancroft and
Telegraph.  We saw a photo booth on the corner.  We pulled aside the
small, red curtain and crammed into the small room.  The pictures that
we have from that day are all we have to remember how we used to be.
A few months later our group began to change as  Bill, upset by family
problems at home, disconnected himself from us.
********
       September 2006:  On a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of
September, a few of Mel's friends, most of whom I already knew,
gathered at her house for her "not birthday party" (this was her
unsuccessful way of trying to get people not to bring presents.  It's
actually very hard to get her to accept a gift, unless it helps
somebody else).  The sky was blue, the birds were chirping
--everything was hunky dory.   We were all having a good time, drawing
with chalk, playing charades, talking.  Something was wrong though.
"Where's Bill?" I heard someone ask.  Yeah, why isn't Bill here yet?
He should've been here a while ago.  I was going to see what was up.
       As I walked away from the group to get a little bit more privacy, my
fingers automatically dialed the phone number that they had learned
almost a decade earlier.  ring... ring...
       "Hello?"  It was his mom.
       "Hi.  It's David.  Is Bill home right now?"
       "Oh, hi David.  Bill's home right now... but he's sleeping."
       He's what?  Why the fuck is he sleeping?  "Ok.  Do you know if he's
coming to Mel's later?  When I talked to him earlier, he said he was
going to."
       "No.  I don't think he is.  He's tired right now, so he'll probably
sleep for the rest of the day."
       "Ok.  Thanks.  Can you tell him that I called when he wakes up?"
       "Yeah.  I'll do that."
       "Thanks.  Bye."
       "Bye."  I hung up the phone.  Something's not right.  Is he actually
THAT tired?  Or is he just blowing us off?  I didn't want to believe
that he would blow us off, so I chose to believe that he was THAT
tired.  I tried to put that out of my mind and walked back towards the
rest of the group.  "Is he coming?" Mel asked, looking up from her
chalk drawing.
       "No.  I don't think so.  His mom said he was sleeping and too tired to come."
       "Oh... ok..."  She went back to her drawing, but it was obvious that
she was hurt by this.
       "Sorry."  I didn't know what else to say, so I just sat down, picked
up a piece of chalk and continued drawing.
       I think that I should've been able to see where this was going, but I
didn't want to believe it.  JYCA started up again and Bill didn't come
back.  He wouldn't return our phone calls, he  ignored us in the
halls, and came back with new friends --Not again...
       I knew he was having his own problems and he probably wasn't trying
to ignore us.  It was probably a side effect of his problem.  But it
felt like he was doing this on purpose.   We had gotten used to having
him with us.  Then he left.   Why had he started ignoring us?  Why
couldn't he come to us to talk about his problems?  I wanted to help
him out but I didn't want to feel like I was forcing myself on him.  I
don't think that I really tried too hard to help him.  I may never
know what the right thing to do was, but I don't think ignoring the
problem helped.  He seemed to withdraw deeper and deeper into his cave
and we lost even more contact with him.
I hoped it was like off cutting a lizard's tail: painful at first, but
mendable.  But this was not so.  Since then, I don't think I've had
more than two short conversations with him.
********
       Today, Mel is my best friend.  I have a few other friends whom I also
think of as really close friends (including K-B), but of all those
people, I have been closest with her for the longest.  To explain why
this is so important to me, I have to flash back to freshman year of
high school.
       I was a real loner.  I ate lunch by myself pretty much every day.  I
tried to be first to my fourth period geometry class at the end,
though I was usually there long before the bell even rang.  I didn't
talk much.  I told my mom that I was making friends so that she
wouldn't worry, which wasn't a total lie.  It's just that I thought of
everyone as an acquaintance, not a friend.  But I wasn't very happy
about the situation.  I actually didn't know what was bothering me.
And I didn't find out until I actually had it.  When I met Mel and K-B,
I found out how happy it made me to have close friends with whom I
could have fun doing nothing.  And though I still don't have a lot of
friends, I feel good about that.  I have what I need and pretty
recently, actually, found out that I could trust them more than I
thought I could.  I have just one worry: I might not keep in as close
contact with these people as I need to when I go to college.  And
though I'm sure I'll meet new people there, I'd be sad to lose the
people who taught me how important they are to me.  But I figure: if
I'm supposed to stay friends with them I will.  And I know I'm
supposed to.