History Repeats Itself

Ten years ago, I had a string of months in which many bad things happened to people I loved. These were my first experiences with tragedy, major medical challenges, and death and they all happened to people I knew well and cared for very much.

A year after that, just before Thanksgiving, a friend of mine from summer camp died. I was just about to head home for the weekend with my college roommate, and received a phone call telling me of this loss. I spent the better part of the weekend in shock and on the phone with camp friends, which apparently gave my college roommate a lot of time to talk with my parents.

Last night, I talked with this college roommate and updated her on all the tragic things that have happened to people I love in the past month. She remembered back to that Thanksgiving nine years ago and told me about a conversation she had with my mother.

My mother, thinking back over my experiences throughout the past year, had said to my roommate something to the effect of, "it's hard to imagine all these bad things happening to people Phoebe knows... but Phoebe just knows so many people." 

I laughed when she told me this, because it's true. And the truth is that I wouldn't trade all the wonderful people I know (tragic situations and all) for anything in the world. And I wouldn't trade being able to be there for the wonderful people I know (tragic situations and all) for anything in the world either.