Dedication:
Dedicated to a friend I'll never forget.
I spent several years trying to find Mary Ellen's grave. The day she was buried was a brutal March day with an ice storm and cold winds. School closed in the morning that day and I had to catch the bus home and therefore wasn't able to attend her funeral. I never knew where she was buried and had long ago lost touch with the family so the search took me through several cemeteries where she wasn't.
I remember Mary Ellen as a bubbly happy person with musical laughter. The last time I saw her was on a Friday afternoon in the school bathroom just before we caught the bus home. She had just returned to school after spending several months in a TB Sanitarium, but being pronounced cured was released. She looked great that day and seemed to be as healthy and vibrant as ever.
"See you on Monday," She said as we parted that afternoon.
On Monday morning the first thing I heard when I got to school was that Mary Ellen had died the night before. TB aside Mary Ellen was also diabetic and on Sunday she went into a diabetic coma and never came out of it.
I never forgot Mary Ellen because of the light she shed on my world during the short time I knew her. It was a light that reached down through the years of separation. Though I had other friends that died in High School, none of them left me with the light that she had.
St. Mary's Cemetery Milford, MI.

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