During the sectional boys track meet junior year the meet was delayed for over an hour. Right around dusk the electrical system quit working. The meet could not continue until whatever they used to time the events started working again. There was hardly any communication about any of this. We just hung out in the bleachers and walked around.

Jeremiah stayed and waited to watch Ethan run his 800. He was hoping to PR and ended up getting 6th which was better than he’d hoped for. For some reason I was able to watch that one and I’ll never forget them coming around for the final 200M. The boys were 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in a row, one in front of the other with equal space between all of them. I remember thinking then if he could just hold on…

He had to be tired. I was amazed at their speed and you could tell he was running with all he had. He PR’d and after that Jeremiah left. It was dark by then and the meet wasn’t all that close by to home. I remember thinking that I admired his parents. They seemed so free with his driving, letting him go from this place to that, all the way out to camp on some occasions late at night.

Jeremiah was faster in the beginning. They met during the second year of high school when Ethan was a sophomore and Jeremiah a freshman. We told him he might enjoy trying cross country. His friend Elijah, one of his first new friends at the school, was also on the team. He said he thought he might want to give it a try. That was the year with the most boys on the team. It took a while to learn their names, but I finally figured out that Jeremiah was the one with the bright orange shoes.

One time, during the beautiful meet at Pittsfield almost two hours away, Ethan and Jeremiah were coming in neck and neck. Ethan had decided he was going to try and beat him. This was the same meet when teammate Zack Fales had his epic 1st place finish that set the new meet record. This was when I was still running around, and when I saw him and Jeremiah that close, I didn’t know who to cheer for.

So I stopped where I was and watched. Afterward Jeremiah put his sweatshirt on and put the hood up. He pulled the string tight so you could hardly see his face. He was trying hard then not to cry. Ethan gave a devotion about it last year at camp. Not the crying part, but about sports and teams. How Jeremiah had helped him be better.

The next year Jeremiah didn’t run. They’d recently found a brain tumor and he was going to start treatments. The brain tumor was inoperable and incurable. The team made t-shirts with Jeremiah’s name on them. Jeremiah responded well to his treatments. Besides cross country that year, he did most everything the other kids did. He was on the basketball team and was top in his class.

Jeremiah had a lot of friends and each one has their own stories about him. During his funeral service they had four speakers from varying youth groups and peer communities he was a part of. He was homecoming king his junior year and went to nearly every dance with his steady girlfriend of well over a year. No one was ever able to tell me where she was from.

I could tell that Ethan loved Jeremiah very much. Last fall he told me that Jeremiah’s parents had gotten a spot with something with the Make a Wish foundation. The wish was to throw the first pitch at a Cardinal’s game. Ethan asked if we could go and watch and bring friends. Of course we could, we just had to know the date. It took a while but we finally found out. I asked my daughter if she’d come along.

The rest of the van was filled with boys. Miles and others. It was a school night and we were going to be out late, but it was worth it. It poured as soon as we pulled into the parking garage. We stood there and waited for the rain to pass by. It never fully did so we had to get wet crossing into the stadium. We went down to our seats after having to wait a while because there was still some occasional lightening.

There were actually like 10-15 first pitches that night. Jeremiah was toward the end of the lineup. The boys asked if they could go over to where the basketball boys were sitting on the other side of the stadium. I said they could but to stay together. They watched Jeremiah from over there. I’d run into a couple from Hoyleton, so I was talking to them. I had to excuse myself to go back down to our seats to make sure I didn’t miss the whole reason we’d come.

For the visitation Ethan wore the team shirt from junior year. In the week before Jeremiah died, there’d been many friends coming and going at their house. When Ethan and Elijah went to visit, his dad told them that this past year Jeremiah didn’t really want to run. He was burnt out on running, but he had wanted to be with Ethan and Elijah for their senior year.

I forgot to mention prom when they all went as friends, when Peter didn’t know they were supposed to show up dressed. Jeremiah was a sophomore that year, but was able to go with the group of juniors. I don’t even know who took him officially as their date. He was very well-liked and loved at school that I doubt it even mattered what person he went with.

Jeremiah had to leave school toward the end of the school year. His tumor had started affecting more things and prom was the last major school event he’d been to. He came to graduation but I hadn’t seen him. I didn’t see him that day until he came for the party, rolling up in a wheel chair. He could not push himself, and he had on a hat and sunglasses to shield his eyes from the light. I hadn’t realized he’d been declining and was taken back.

But the boys went right up to him and made their adjustments. Ethan didn’t see him again until the week before he died. Rumors had been coming that he was fading and was now on hospice. His friend Noah had told him that if he wanted to come then he needed to come soon. They went the next night. The next day Elijah’s mom asked if Ethan would go with Elijah. They went back again that afternoon.

Yesterday when he left for school, he was wearing the same purple shirt that he’d worn for the visitation. I didn’t ask, but I wondered if this was his way honoring his friend whose funeral he wouldn’t be going to that morning. Throughout the day, at various times during class, I was wondering if we all had made a mistake. I should’ve gone with them. He should’ve stayed another day. Eventually I realized I was probably just sad.

I told Elijah not long ago, when driving him from camp to the school where his mom works. When Ethan was sitting alone at the lunch table, he was the one to come over and ask if Ethan wanted to come over and sit with them. Later I learned that he too had been a new kid, as he’d started a new school the year before in 8th grade. I told him thank you for being his friend. If I could I would say the same thing to Jeremiah.