Back at the memorial service, faces I knew and faces I always wondered about filled the shop a hundred people deep. I was nervous to see anyone who recognized me, but as it goes in small communities, once you’ve left your mark, a hug awaits you around every corner.
Matt’s best friend came up to me.
“Sasya, you won’t believe who’s here,” and he led me around a crowd of people.
Standing before me was our surfing friend, David. I ran into him for a hug as I started to cry. “They found you. You got my emails.”
David shook his head in grief, “I can’t believe it,” he said in the same shock I had had for a month already. “Wait, what emails?”
“You didn’t get my emails? I was emailing surfers in Mexico to find you. They didn’t tell you? Then how did you know to come?”
David explained that he had had problems with his Achilles' tendon, (which ironically to me had been Matt’s same physical issue when I had first met him), and that he had come back into the Valley for one day and night to see his doctor. He had driven into town for dinner and someone had said to him, “Hey, you going to that thing for Matt?”
David said, “What is Matt having?”
I cried wondering if Matt was up there orchestrating this all.
Moments later, while I stood in a circle of women blubbering about how strange it was that David had shown up, Matt’s Aunt Sarah came up to me.
“Sasya, this is Katy. I think you two would have a lot in common, you should talk.” Katy was one woman that I didn’t recognized from the Valley, which meant nothing since it had only been my second summer here.
“Katy, I need to eat. Let me grab something.”
I trusted Matt’s Aunt Sarah that she wouldn’t give me something I couldn’t handle. I also trusted her because it was one of the few relatives in Matt’s family that he had recently grown close to during a time when he started to separate himself from so many others.
