'Let Us See Them There in the Shadows'

A childhood acquaintance has died. We were never close. In fact, I didn’t know he was still alive until a friend told me he was dead. What I remember is his face, his general demeanor, roughly the sort of behavior I could expect of him. I last saw him more than half a century ago. The only thing about him I remember vividly is his friendship with another boy, one who committed suicide around the age of twelve. We were given few details. His death came as more of a rumor than a pathologist’s report. I know he hanged himself and people didn’t talk about it. From the adults I got the sense there was something indecent about it. Too often I’ve had the opportunity to remember Donald Justice’s “On the Death of Friends in Childhood,” from his first collection, The Summer Anniversaries (1960): 

“We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,

Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;

If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,

Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands

In games whose very names we have forgotten.

Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.”