letters (again)

I wrote a letter a few months back, sent it off into the wilderness, and it came back to me, crumpled and stained, recipient unknown, unreachable, unfound.

Dear Stephen,

You may not remember me even if you are the right Stephen Leonforte, and that's something of a big assumption on my part. I'm looking for a Stephen who went to Lakeland High School, who was several years behind me, who overlapped not at all with my high school crowd, but who played in the school orchestra with me, a rather scrawny kid with a sweet smile.

This is a silly story, embarrassing in its 21st century networking way, but I joined Facebook a little while back, joined the hundreds of millions of people who've signed up for it at this point, and have since found or been found by quite a few people from way back when. Some I've been curious about, some I've thought of not at all, some it seems a waste to be back in touch with having never had much to talk about in the first place. But you, Stephen, if this is you, I've found myself wondering about every so often.

At any rate, I was somewhat disappointed to not find you on Facebook and so I googled you (I hope this doesn't seem odd or creepy to you, as it certainly wasn't intended to be -- I work in a library, have for many years now, and it is practically second nature, this propensity for looking up things I find myself wondering about), if one can use that as a verb these days. There are not that many Stephen Leonfortes in the world, or so it seems, and pretty much the only thing I found was an obituary for your brother. Not the same brother that passed away in high school, but yet another brother, and I felt close to tears to think of you going through yet another tragedy, yet another loss of this magnitude.

I am so sorry. I'm so sorry for his loss, and perhaps for bringing it up here now, so devoid of context, and for rambling on here in such shameless fashion. I am almost done.

I came to work this morning and, over cups of coffee, found myself telling this story to a friend; this story, or non-story, of a boy I barely knew but was fond of, almost fifteen years ago, and how we were never friends, but perhaps felt a little bit connected somehow, in that odd, awkward, adolescent way, over our early losses. I told her how I'd found this obituary and was stunned into silence, into tears, by the scope of the grief your family must be carrying, and how I wanted to write something, wanted to say something, but didn't know how.

She, brilliant woman that she is, laughed and said, "Did you check the white pages?" And so I did, and so here I am, writing this crazy letter to a man very far away from New York, who may or may not once have been a boy I knew a little bit, who had a kind smile and a reservoir of sadness and about whom I catch myself wondering sometimes.

I guess I don't really have anything else to say, other than that I hope you are well, and that it would be lovely to hear from you (it is odd, if also somehow oddly pleasing, in this day and age, to be writing an actual letter, with a stamp and everything), but that there is no need, if this is too weird or if I have in fact found the wrong person all together.

All the best,
Emma