A Familiar Face: A Eulogy for a Friend

Cross-posted at Mildly Brilliant.com:

Lately I have seen someone so frequently that I can draw them from memory. That someone is Death. I speak metaphorically of course, but if I was the nocturnal emission of Ingmar Bergman I would challenge my newfound adversary to a game of chess... speed chess. Let's face it, in this fast paced world we have schedules to maintain.

My latest meeting involved someone too damn young to be abducted by a pasty-faced scythe wielding druid. The last secondary job I had was doing security at a sleepy mountain town resort where I befriended said individual. He was the son of my boss; a feisty woman with a pension for tyrannical persuasions; when left to her own devices; who ultimately drove me away with her inability to maintain a Fonzy-like presence, which is necessary in modern day management. He showed all the symptoms of an iconoclast: an inability to fit in fashion wise, the disregard for rules, speed limits, boundaries, and suggestions. He was known to even defy me even though he and I knew it was an exercise in futility.

Drake was a man boy after my own heart. I say boy because he was not allowed the luxury to grow into a man. Fate, cruel like a media critic, took a premature swipe at him and left him without a future. He was not allowed to fulfill his destiny as a computer hacker, a mastermind criminal, or even worse, a CEO of [insert successful corporation here]. At 14 he died from massive head trauma due to an untimely automobile accident and left a few hundred people at a loss for words.

At the service I was moved, yet not surprised at the attendance.