Echoes

Andrew Ryan Bess.

Sometimes when I walk the halls and walkways of UCF I start to think about Andrew. I wonder if some of the footsteps I take are in sync with the echoes of his from 4 years ago. I wonder if he felt the same apprehension I feel going into an exam, or if he felt calm and collected. I wonder if maybe I have sat in a desk that he sat in.

Sometimes I wonder what he was thinking right before he died. What kind of thoughts can you have as your car spins out of control?

I torment myself sometimes for not knowing him well enough. For assuming that he would always be there. After all, someone that kind and that full of life can never die...

But I suppose he really hasn't. As long as I keep thinking about him and talking about him, he hasn't really gone.

I wonder if I listened close enough, if I could hear the echoes of the past and maybe be lucky enough to catch a whisper of his voice. I find myself reading articles about his death, if only to learn just a little more about him, and what happened that day in November. Twenty-one is much too young to end a life.

I never knew enough about him. I feel I never will. It's like trying to put together a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle with only 10 or 20 pieces and no picture to guide me.

My Aunt seems to think that I am the most like him. I suppose, then, by knowing myself I'll be able to find another piece of the puzzle. But no one is exactly the same. It's still not enough.

Sometimes I feel that I have no right to mourn for him because I know so little about him. I wish that I knew more.

I walk the halls of this place, hoping maybe I'll hear an echo. Or maybe just hoping somehow that walking the same halls that he did, I will learn something more about him.

Sometimes I search the internet, hoping to grasp onto something more of him. But the only things I find are those about his death. There is almost nothing about his life, except the reminiscing of friends and family recorded in obituaries and newspaper articles. This is not enough for me.

I wish I could write a book about him. A book about his life, not his death. For once, give him life in something written that is not focused solely on the day that he died. There should be something out there about him that isn't simply an obituary or an article about his wake or a candlelight vigil. Or perhaps a movie or just something that sheds some kind of light on the amazing person that he was.

Somehow, I will find a way to get to know him. Even though he himself can no longer sit down and tell me about his life, I will find a way to meet him again through the people who knew him. He deserves nothing less.