You know, sometimes we forget to remember the people we love.

Strangely enough, we tend to think about these people only when it’s too late. Sadly, we regret things that we blurted out in anger and things we never had a chance to say. The irony is that we’ve had somewhere between 17 and 20 or so years to say the things we’ve wanted to say to people we love…or to the people we hate.

I think not only of the unfortunate victims of last Saturday’s fatal train incident, but of my own friends and family. Friends and family that I have all but forgotten about, or at the very least, neglected.

It doesn’t seem to make any sense that we can be friends with certain people for years and years and years, and once they graduate or move on or what-have-you—then POOF—they’re all but a memory. Why is this? I really don’t know.

A letter gets sent here and there. (Usually to Mom and Dad begging for money.) A rare phone call placed (when you want to visit a friend at U of I over Halloween). But soon these small reminders slack off and eventually stop. Who was once a best friend for years becomes a fleeting memory in as little as a few months. But we never seem to worry too much about it, confident that we’ll catch up with this person sooner or later. Usually later.

And as we have all heard at least a million times too often, it doesn’t do any good to think of someone when they’re gone. By then it’s too late.

So why do we do this? Human nature? Laziness? Procrastination? I can answer ‘yes’ to all those questions. Perhaps it’s because even though we are not even close to becoming immortal, we still haven’t grasped the concept of mortality. We like to think that we will live forever and seem to assume that everyone we know will live on and on just as well. Is this simply wishful thinking or is it that we, somewhere deep inside, actually think that immortality is truly attainable? Maybe it’s that we have come to count too much on tomorrow.

But whatever the reason, things should probably start changing. Go to the phone (if you can get through) and call up a friend. Call your mom. Call your dad. Call Sue or Uncle Lou, since it’s been awhile. Just don’t wait. Tomorrow might be too late to call. You never know when something horrible might happen.

And since I brought up Mom and Dad, did you remember them on holidays or on their birthdays? It’s a little strange, isn’t it, that our parents rarely forget us and we forget them? We can always use the excuse that we’re poor, busy students without the time or the money to go shopping for a present, but it doesn’t take that long to call or write a letter. Plus, a stamp is only a quarter.

So what am I preaching about? I’m just as guilty as the next person. My dad’s birthday is tomorrow. And it’s not that I forgot, but I have been really busy, not to mention really poor… . Too poor for a stamp? But that postal booth gadget isn’t really on my way. Oh, excuses, excuses, will they ever end?

Probably only when it’s too late. So, let me take this chance now: Happy birthday, Dad. And thanks for everything.