Pinch me.... this can't be true....

Yesterday I got the most awful news. I got three phone calls in a row from Mary Beth. Thinking that something had to be wrong (her mom has been sick) I pick up during my call times, which technically, I am not supposed to do.

She obviously didn't know how to tell me. But I could tell something was wrong. And then she spit it out:

A girl we went to high school with - Imette St. Guillen, someone we were relatively close with back then - had been found dead. Murdered. In New York City. I was shocked to say the least.

If you watched the news last night you heard all the gory details, and if you didn't then I am sorry but I just can't bring myself to actually write them out. You can find the more tasteful article of the four I found on the New York Times Website. The other articles I found were on the Herald's website, the Globe's website and then the worst of the articles was on the NY Post's website. I swear the Post is like a tabloid. The articles they have written to date on this tragedy have been awful. I guess no journalist can spin this story into something pretty, but you can at least be respectful.

The waves of horror broke out yesterday around 2pm. Brian called Adam, who's married to Victoria. Victoria called Megan, who called Mary Beth, who called me. I called Katie, Michaela, and Jen. No one's reaction was any different. "Oh my God! Her poor mother, the poor friends who left her." It's all we could think. We were shocked. It hit me really hard. I was shaking and sick to my stomach. I cried for a while. And this was before I heard all the details of how she was found, which was enough to make me sob in my recliner for an hour and want to throw up. I can't even begin to tell you how hard it hit me.

After seeing her high school year book picture on the news, I ran to get my yearbook. And there was her bubbly handwriting, reminding me about the night in eighth grade when we went to the circus with Pat Shearns and telling me never to change and that she would cherish all the fun times we had through the years, and to keep in touch.

I can't say I was ever Imette St. Guillen's best friend. Since high school I saw her occasionally when she was home on break at JP Licks with everyone, and at our high school reunion where we switched cell phone numbers and said we'd keep in touch.

But we never did keep in touch. And maybe that is why this hits me the way it does. It just makes me realize that people say "keep in touch" too easily, without regard for what it means. Or how much effort it takes to stay in touch with someone. My last memory of Imette is standing around our reunion drinking white wine with her telling me how excited she was about going to John Jay for forensic science and how she wanted to solve crimes one day. She told me how happy she was to go see another new city - she had gone to DC for undergrad - and then she told me to keep in touch.

I guess I just always thought there would be a chance meeting at JP Licks.

And now, when most people are getting back together as a class for weddings and births, the class of 1999 will get together to stand behind a woman who lost her daughter in the most tragic of ways - assaulted, bound and left with people's trash on the side of the road. It just can't be happening like this.

I will tell you one thing though, when people say keep in touch this time around I am not going to wait for chance meetings, I am going to try my best to keep in touch. Because (and I know it's cliche) life is really too short, it's precious, and there isn't always a tomorrow.

Imette, we'll miss you.
May God Rest Her Soul.