Tons of my friends were crossing into that weird level of adulthood, where nothing seemed off limits anymore. We had just moved back to Sioux Falls, and she had come over to see the new house, and we probably made a date to go hang out; to head to the bar and to do the things that over-21 year olds do. To drink. To enjoy each other’s company. To be friends.

It was old news to us by that point. I was 24. We had become the wise sages of bar life. But she had just turned 21, and I owed her a beer.

And then, she was gone. Just like that.

I don’t remember the circumstances, and I don’t need to. I remember the important part: Beka, our friend, was in a car accident. She was thrown from the car. She was airlifted to the hospital. And she died.

She died.

She was 21.

Innocence gets dashed in any of a thousand ways. The unlucky see it dashed while they’re still young. They see it dashed as mere children through any combination of divorce or abuse or space shuttle disaster. It’s the first path toward adulthood, the understanding that nothing is perfect, and that things can be shitty at times. It’s the tragedy of youth: the inevitable realization that nothing lasts forever, and that the shelters our parents help us build are fragile, corrupted and rusting before we even get a chance to reinforce them on our own.

Yet, others hold that innocence for as long as they can. Those are the strong ones. Those are the ones that confront a dying parent with optimism, who don’t much care for the idea that death is an option, and who effectively jam the gears of adulthood through sheer will.

Beka never lost that innocence. Her smile was genuine. Her enthusiasm was contagious. Her spirit acted as if it was looped up on goofballs, always pushing for more. Always looking for fun. Always happy. Always brilliant.

That was Beka. That’s just who she was.

Beka never lost that innocence. But all of us – all of her friends, and all of her family – after that day, at least – did. We were thrust into the court of adulthood, ready or not. We could no longer count our friends by those who would show up for a party – we now had friends who could never show up, because they had passed away.

Days later, we’d spend a cold night in a Catholic church. Some of us never figured out whether we should be kneeling or praying, and we found it easy to pick out the Protestants through their insistance on continuing the Lord’s Prayer. We giggled to ourselves because that’s all we could do. That’s all you fucking can do when your friend dies. That’s all you can do to stay sane. Because, damn it, she was just a kid, and that’s all we could muster to even begin to understand the cruelty of her death.

All we could do is laugh. It was so ridiculous, otherwise.

The day we found out, Kerrie and I were in Rochester, visiting Kerrie’s sister. I got a call from my best friend Jim – one of Beka’s closest friends. He was grave. He had obviously been crying. And he told us the news.

“Beka is dead,” he said.

“What? Shit. I’m sorry,” I responded.

“Don’t be sorry. She was your friend, too,” Jim answered.

Just like that, I knew what we had lost.

When it came down to it, we weren’t close to her – not like others in our group were close to her, at least. But, then again, we were. There was no grey area with Beka – if you were her friend, you were her FRIEND. And every damned person was her friend. Because she was damned good at being the best person she could be.

I don’t think of her a lot anymore, and I know that’s a symptom of moving on. I incorrecly assume this is because we weren’t incredibly close. That’s not true.

In reality, I don’t think of her because she reminds me of my loss of innocence. Others mourn, while I would rather forget. I still wish I could go back, sometimes, to when life was without problems, where we were still naive. Beka’s passing changed all of that. She did us a favor, in one way. She forced us to grow up.

When I think about it, though, I DO miss her. I can’t help it. It’s ultimately her lasting legacy. We miss her an awful lot, but we have to move on. Not without her, but in honor of her.

It’s hard. It’s still hard.

Now, here I sit. Nine years and one day after the fact. And I still haven’t gotten her that beer.

If you follow me on Twitter or Flickr, I won’t follow back. Unless I want to. Likewise, I fully understand that, if I follow someone I admire on Twitter, I shouldn’t expect them to reciprocate – especially if they have no idea who I am.

Yeah. We went to school together. But it doesn’t mean I am required to answer your Facebook request.

I’m sorry to have to say this out loud, but I thought the idea of reciprocation was clear: if what you are giving to me is worth repaying, I will repay it. Otherwise, please do not assume I have enough time in my life to follow, link and friend every person I’ve ever come in contact with.

Do you guys remember when blogrolls were a big deal? There were two ways of making it onto someone’s blogroll.

1. Write or curate a blog that’s worth reading.
2. Add the blogroll’s site to YOUR blogroll, then hint that, since YOU have blogrolled THEM, THEY should reciprocate.

Number two? That’s a passive aggressive form of assumed reciprocation, and it used to run rampant. Even little ol’ Black Marks on Wood Pulp fell victim to the constant haranguing of blogroll link collectors.

Then, there’s the “I’ll follow you if you follow me” form of assumed reciprocation (let’s call it what it really is: RANSOM) that forces a disingenuous and false sense of shared admiration. And, it puts the recipient in an awkward spot.

These things occur without regard to my preferences on recommendations or relationships. I simply may not have time to offer correspondence. Or, I may be impossibly strict on who I offer praise and recommendation. But now I’ve been pigeonholed. I can ignore and be labeled as a jerk. Or I can accept and undermine my principles.

I don’t like that.

So, if you want to go ahead and recommend me, or follow me, or offer me some kind of praise, or make my life better, you need to go ahead and do it.

Just, please, don’t expect anything in return.

I was in a band. It was called Phake. The name was a play on the idea that, though we had attempted to infiltrate the local punk rock scene, we weren’t punk rock at all. We were fake punkers, fighting for a niche in the local hardcore punk scene, and in the early days of ironic t-shirts I threw together a self-made number that proclaimed our not-punk-though-really-we-wished-we-were status.

It was our fifth name in a year of practicing. It stuck.

With it came a distressing label: “Not Very Good.” But, let’s be honest. That label might have been deserved.

We weren’t very good.

At that time, we didn’t care. Or we didn’t know it. A little of both, really.

But we tried, and here’s the thing: we eventually worked our way into the public conscience, like worm wriggling into rotten wood. We got better – still not good, but BETTER – and, as things often work, we stumbled into some kind of routine. Our practices sounded something like this [WARNING - shitty garage band alert.]

Then, one guy got kicked out and another guy decided he was done and soon the band was over, just as we had supposedly found our niche and identity.

I don’t bring this up because I’m nostalgic, or because I needed an excuse to play this video that our friend Jim inexplicably kept long past its freshness date, but because I realize how badly we all needed to flail and stumble and fail before we could really belong.

Except for me (the non-musician in the group) all four members ended up becoming fantastic musicians and songwriters and people in general. Some still play today. Bring the five of us back together, and there might be something special.

And while I didn’t gain anything musically, I did gain confidence, which I suppose is the ultimate instrument of a lead vocalist.

I failed. We all failed. We had a whole lot of fun and made a bunch of friends that we still hang out with today and, hey, we can all say “Yeah, we were in a band once,” and that kind of cool points doesn’t come around that often.

Given the chance – and given the friends and experiences and confidence I gained – I’d fail all over again.

Oh, you’ve never heard that one?

No. Probably not. It was what we call an “inside joke.” It’s based almost exclusively on the experiences, thoughts and interactions between three people – my friends John and Doug, and me.

I could explain it, but it wouldn’t be worth it. I could recall how the Von Erichs as a family were cursed – most of them went into wrestling, and nearly all of them died young. I could mention how Kerry Von Erich really did have a wooden leg, and that a drug overdose didn’t seem like a cool enough cursed death, though the prospect of wrestling with one leg seemed amazing and, obviously, pretty funny. I could describe how it was late, and we were waiting for the doors at FuncoLand to open so we could start selling Playstation 2 systems at midnight, and Doug’s sense of humor has often bordered on the absurd.

Even after all of that, you wouldn’t get it.

So all I can say is, “Sorry.”

“It’s an inside joke.”

Thankfully, we’ve been lucky enough to know Sierra’s closest friends since the beginning. Many of our inner circle brought kids in at the same time – four children within five months, to be exact. So when we hung out together, our kids hung out too.

Our kids’ friends’ parents are our friends. It makes things pretty easy.

It won’t always be this way. I realized this yesterday, after wondering whether or not to invite some of Sierra’s daycare friends. Friends whose parents I don’t know. Friends whose parents I have nothing in common with. Which led to another realization:

I am completely unprepared to face the day that I don’t know the parents of Sierra’s friends.

What a silly notion, you might think. Well laugh it up – I’m completely serious. The luxury of knowing the parents of Sierra’s friends – not just knowing, even, but having close connections to – is something I never want to give up. I understand Sierra’s friends through stories from their parents. I have a connection to these kids – I look out for them as if they were nephews or nieces, caring for them like family. After all, our friends are an extended family, and we’ve been here for these kids since the beginning.

I trust them. I trust their parents. I have no qualms about letting Sierra spend the night, or go on a day-trip, or any sort of activity, with these people.

But I imagine a few years from now, once Sierra’s in school, inviting her friends to her 5th birthday party – the ones she’s chosen, from school or daycare or down the block. I imagine these parents showing up in my backyard, meeting me for the first time, struggling to find some connection outside of the pony show of a birthday party, my comfort zone smashed as I scrounge around for an exit strategy.

There’s a time in the future when I won’t want to go out for beers with the parents of Sierra’s friends. And it’s that time I’ll know that she’s growing up, making her own decisions and leaving my ideals in the dust.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be prepared for that.

This past weekend, they were married in one of the most beautiful and genuine weddings I’ve ever had the privilege to attend.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want them to find happiness, or that I was a grouchy non-believe in the ways of matchmaking – it was the prospect of disaster, of knowing both parties and bracing for what I assumed was inevitable. As I got to know him – and as I understood more about her – it began to seem like a no-brainer.

A no-brainer, but still a risk.

So I waited. I held my breath. I ducked, expecting the dishes to come flying. Two opposites, two strong personalities, two lives already finely honed over nearly 30 years of movement and life.

I’ll admit. It was almost sickening to see them join so easily, melding together like sugar in water (and nearly as unnaturally sweet, damn it) taking on each others habits and enjoying each other’s company even during arguments. It was the thing you never think you’ll see – two soul mates discovering each other through the random chance of a mutual acquaintance.

Each person we meet takes something away from us. Sometimes it’s just a look, or a memory. But other times, it’s something a lot bigger – it’s an opportunity. A chance at happiness.

A new life, created through a little creative networking. Lightning striking in the perfect spot, fusing two people together – two people who had no idea what they were getting into just eighteen months ago.

To which I say, “Congrats.”

And, “You’re Welcome.”

I went to Addyson’s funeral today. She was nine days old.

The proximity of the two births made her passing so jarring. So close. It’s clouded my thoughts since it happened, my mind imagining what I’d do if it was ours, my heart bruised from questioning why it had to happen to someone so cool. So genuinely caring. To someone who, despite my knowing only on a work level, had quickly become a friend.

Let’s be honest. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than the funeral of a baby; the white casket wheeled in, padded and adorned with teddy bears, small enough to leave nothing to the imagination. There is no doubt that we’re all there to mourn the death of a child. There is no question that it’s going to be hard.

Through the beveled walls and wooden pews, a wave of sadness quieted the room. Nothing – nothing at all, not a single word – can comfort a parent during this. There is only time. And as time hadn’t made its way into their lives, we could only sit. And hope.

Because so few in attendance knew Addyson on a personal level, I suspect we were all thinking the same things. About how horrible it must be to be in that position – to say goodbye to your own daughter, to attend the funeral of a person you had nurtured and raised through the womb, finally to meet her, only to see her taken away before you ever got the chance to know her.

And we were all thinking about what we’d do in that position. During a video of Addyson’s short life, I had to bury my eyes, squeezing back emotion. During a congregation-wide singing of “Jesus Loves Me,” I had to stay silent. I might have been as torn up as the family – not because I was close to Addyson, but because I’m so close to my own children. Because I don’t know what I’d do if they were taken away.

Do we feel worse about the death of a child because of the life we knew? Or because of what we never had the chance to know? When we ache over a young life lost, is it because of what we had discovered – the love we had found while they were still alive – or because of the potential love we could have shared?

It’s the innocence of parenthood – and the innocence of a newborn – that makes everything so difficult. No one believes their child will be taken – after all, in a karmic world, a newborn hasn’t had a chance to learn right from wrong, their innocence shielding them from judgment.

There are times I feel guilty. Though there’s no correlation, I can’t help but feel guilty. Isaac and Addyson were connected, though only through chance. Isaac survived. Addyson didn’t.

But that’s not fair – to us or to Addyson’s family. It’s not about who’s left, but who’s gone – it’s about losing a love before it could even be stoked, finding a soul mate only to have him or her taken. It’s about knowing what could have been – to be within reaching distance – and seeing it disappear.

So I sat, quietly, a whirlwind of feelings – concern, empathy, sorrow. Staring at the ceiling, fighting to keep it together, one person put everything in perspective. Kaiden, Addyson’s brother, a little boy who barely understands the magnitude of the event, looks up at his crying mother and tries to crack a joke. He laughs. I can only imagine a flicker of a smile passed by, a flicker Kaiden picked up on and, loudly, with innocence, asked his mother if things had passed.

“Are you better now?”

Probably not, Kaiden. Especially not now.

But who knows? In time, all of this will pass. Until then, though, it will weigh on our hearts – yes, even ours, those who only witnessed a fit of love so strong it filled the funeral home with emotion despite our distance – and it will continue to remind us of what we have in life.

To never take things for granted. To cherish each hug. Now, and until the end, whenever that is. So that if we’re ever put into this position, we can say with confidence that we’re crying for everything. The past and the future. Each day of a child’s life, and each day yet to come.

Feeling pain for both for what we had and the potential of what could have been. And lamenting the loss of innocence.

You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been three days since we said goodbye to our first home.

And I can’t help but be surprised how much I miss it.

Though we spent the past two and a half months working to buy and sell a home, the move crept up on us. Despite the culmination of events – events that led us from desperate to frantic to endlessly busy in just a few weeks – I am still shocked by how empty our house could become, how it happened so fast, how I was completely unprepared to let go.

How, despite spending months trying to get rid of it, I still wished we could have made it work out. Stay a little longer. Hang out one last time.

It took two trucks and a handful of eager movers to completely gut our house. When it was finished, I walked from room to room, snapping pictures of my favorite features, taking it all in – as empty and clean as when we moved in, with little change aside from seven years worth of wear.

Kerrie shed a few tears. But I kept myself insulated from it, fearing that I’d shed the same tears. I looked forward, not behind; blinded by anticipation, I did what I could to grind out the hours. I unpacked the house several times in my sleep. I imagined where things would go, what I could do, what surprises were in store.

But that last night, I couldn’t help myself. “Here I am,” I thought. “My last night in my first home.”

Our first home. Where we planned our marriage. Brought home a dog. Trained a dog. Nursed little nips from a dog. We got married and bought cars and became adults. We formed our careers though several hiccups. I began writing in the dormer. I began reading again in the dormer. I learned about my new job in the dormer and privately celebrated in the dormer.

It was Sierra’s first home. Our first child. Her first steps, first words, first teeth, first joys and pains. She learned how to be a person in that house. She fell into our lives in that house.

There are a handful of things I’ll always remember. The creaky floors outside of Sierra’s room. The nights sitting in a rocking chair, with only the glaring light of the hall illuminating my book as I lulled Sierra to sleep. The night I listened to John Edwards and Dick Cheney as they debated in the summer of 2004. And the night I watched the first politician I truly believed in elected President four years later.

A lot of life was lived in those walls. But I’m thankful for one thing: the first years in that house were something Kerrie and I had to ourselves. They are memories we hold closely, memories that only we can claim. And likewise, that house is something that we can share with Sierra – a reminder of the days before our family had become four, something special that Sierra gets to remember, to her ability, in the upcoming years.

This new house begins a new chapter. In a few weeks, baby boy will be born. Life will get more complicated, will require more time and more space. And with our new home, we have it. It’s the perfect marking point for what we had and what we are about to become.

We are lucky. We found a house we wanted, put our house on the market, and were lucky enough to still snag it months later. We were able to make it quick. Harried, but painless. We were able to find people to help us – people who we thank for all eternity, from our families to our friends, from our Realtor Briana to the kind souls who owned our home before we moved in.

I miss the old house. But I love this one just as much. And once I come to grips with the idea that my memories are still around, despite the new location, I’ll slowly forget about what we had and focus on only what we have.

All of our stuff is here. It’s strewn across the house, scattered throughout each room like beads of mercury, dispersing in every direction, seeking level ground, but it’s here all the same.

And room by room, things are looking more comfortable. More like what we left behind. More like home.

Really, it’s already there. We’re here. We’ll continue to grow here, will celebrate new lives and new milestones.

This is our new base. Our new home. All that’s changed is the location.

You’ll have to pardon me for going all Rick Reilly on you. There’s no surprise in the statement I’ve just made. It’s certainly not an original thought.

But when it comes to the traditions that accompany the holidays, it’s true. And it’s even more. I’m not simply growing – I’m rediscovering, finding the joy in holidays and rites of passage that I had long since passed off as child’s play, too old to even consider the enjoyment.

Halloween was this way. Same with Christmas gift opening. And now, Easter egg hunts.

Three times this week, Sierra took part in some version of an Easter egg hunt. Each version, though conducted by different people and stocked with different types of prizes, had one thing in common – eggs left in the open, cordoned off by some invisible pact that they were available only for the smallest children. These eggs, though bright colors and easily discernable from the grass underneath, still went overlooked at times, each kid running right by it as they focused on an egg in the distance. It was all very cute. Naturally.

More than that, it was a lot of fun. For both of us. When had I forgotten about Easter egg hunts?

I once grasped the holidays like there would be no others, and Easter was one of my favorites. I jumped headfirst into the traditions – dyeing eggs, hunting, waiting anxiously until the next morning, the idea of a treat-filled basket second only to the bounty that waited on Christmas.

I had left those traditions behind as I grew older, dissuaded by parents who rightfully assumed I was getting too old and then distanced further as I assumed my own march into adulthood. Other friends – the people that are probably more fun to hang out with than myself – may have continued to hold tight to the youthful charm of these traditions, but I had moved on. I had grown out of it.

But today, I saw those traditions being discovered; the excitement of discovering another egg around the corner, the seemingly constant barrage of candy and snacks, the exhausted fall into drowsiness that accompanies a day of family and friends and food.

I felt as if I was finding something I had lost. With each egg Sierra found, and with each excited squeal, I remembered how much fun life can be.

How the things we do as kids prepare us for the lives we’ll lead as parents. How, despite the time away, growing up is like riding a bike: you never forget how to crack open a plastic egg, and you never forget how to shove so much candy in your mouth you almost choke.

How we never really lose the love of a tradition, even if we no longer take advantage of it.

This is the vessel that our entire married life has been contained within. The only home Sierra has ever known. The house where our lives changed – where sheer longings turned into surprising realities, where we’ve seen friends come and go and pass away.

Which means, in some confusing and over-dramatized way, we’re selling our life. Or, at least, part of it.

We’ve put our house on the market. In doing so, we’ve put our sense of style on the market. Our security. Our cocoon, our safety zone, our base, free from tag, no touch backs and all of that.

We’ve put our view of the perfect life out for everyone to see, to judge and to offer on. It’s like sending a manuscript to a handful of publishers – we’re opening ourselves up for critique, and the person who wants our home the most will make an offer.

I’m happy that we’re doing it. I’m thrilled, actually. It’s exciting, without a doubt. The chance at altering our surroundings is something I look forward to. I’m thrilled with the idea of the hunt, of discovering the perfect new habitat, where both of our kids will roam free, creating the same kind of memories that I created in the homes I grew up in.

But it’s weird to think that Sierra won’t have many memories of this house. And to Baby Boy, this house will simply be an illusion in his parent’s minds – a home in which he was conceived but never stepped foot. It’s the foundation that we clung to as we created a new life for ourselves, a life that made both Sierra and Baby Boy possible, yet it will be like cell theory to the two of them – impossible to imagine, too minute to understand.

I’ll miss this house. At times, I’ll be filled with nostalgia. I know Kerrie feels the same. But it will be short lived. We will turn wherever we land into our home. Just as we’ve done before at this house; just as the lucky owners that follow us will once we leave.

It’s a chapter in our lives that will have passed by – not with painful remembrance, but with fondness. A chapter we can always look back on, proud of what we accomplished.

A chapter in the past, with many left to discover.