NS February 16th, 2007

Shakespeare once mused “What’s in a name?”

For me, a lifelong virtue that I hold dear. My name, Amity, means friendship — something so important to me that the only name that might suit my personality better would be Opinionated. But that doesn’t have a very nice ring to it, does it? As it is, I should just be happy that my hippy parents didn’t name me Moon Biscuit.

There are very few things that I feel unequivocally good at. Friendship is one of them. I’m a good listener, I can draw people out of their shells, dole out sympathy, tough love or advice as needed, and am fiercely loyal. I don’t talk about my friends behind their backs and have only had a handful of arguments with them in my entire life, none of which ended the relationship. I don’t know if I would’ve become the friend I am today if it hadn’t been for the experiences I had in earlier years. The most important lessons I learned about the meaning of my name came from the thrill and intensity of meeting new people at a point in my life when friends were family and family more akin to the plague, and the gut-wrenching dysphoria of losing them to the cruel hands that crush Fate and Death together and rip them from this world.

First, there was Ryan. From the kindergarten class picture in which he was pulling my hair to high school graduation in which he was the valedictorian, he’d always been there in some capacity. Though we weren’t particularly close, we hung out in the same groups, took the same classes, and dated each other’s friends. We joked around and teased each other like you can only do with someone who has known you since you were five years old. He’d threaten to show the new guy who I had the hots for my 5th grade picture, in which I sported a horrific perm, bangs of skyscraper proportions and a purple sweater with a woolen cat clawing its way over my shoulder. He tortured me like the brother I never had and I loved him for it. He infuriated me, but I secretly liked that he still gave me that attention and made me laugh.

After high school we all left for our respective colleges and universities. Most of us were lost, without a clue as to what we wanted to do with our lives, but Ryan was different. So sure of himself, as usual. He had known he wanted to be a pilot for as long as any of us could remember and so it came as no surprise to learn that he had started his flying lessons and had been granted his learning pilot’s license within a couple months of starting uni. He and a fellow student pilot from the neighboring town were given permission to fly a small single engine plane together. Ryan wanted to surprise his parents by flying in for his 19th birthday and so arranged to land at the local airfield. Heavy winds and inexperienced hands made for a rough landing and upon touching down, the plane flipped over and skidded down the runway, out of control, bursting into flames. Ryan died nearly instantly.

My best friend’s mother left a message on my dorm room phone to call her. It was October and I had been out shopping with my roommate for Halloween decorations. It was one of those fantastic autumn days where the leaves have all changed, the air is crisp and cool and the sun’s light seems to be casting itself from every direction all at once, creating shadows, patterns and color palettes that turn the world into something that makes even a hardened atheist believe in God. Giggling breathlessly as I manipulated the fake skeleton’s arms into various poses, I returned the call nonchalantly. Two minutes later I was holding the phone in stunned silence with my mouth gaping open. Laura’s mother cried on the other end of the phone but it was muffled in my jacket as I clutched the receiver and rocked back and forth. My roommate pried it from my fingers and hung it up as she shook my shoulders and asked what had happened. I arranged a ride home with another friend attending the same university and got home that night to congregate with old friends and try to understand what happened together. Ryan’s sister came over and tried to comfort us –comfort US!–and asked us to choose someone to speak at his funeral.

For whatever reason, my friends chose me to write and speak the eulogy. The blessing of my name, the duty of friendship, felt more like a curse at that moment. He was one of the most intelligent, industrious people I had ever met and he had died on his 19th birthday with his whole life ahead of him. What the hell was I supposed to say about that?

Nearly the entire town came. No funeral home could hold the grieving masses so it was held at the school auditorium where he had stood only four months earlier, addressing his classmates in his blue cap and gown, gold tassels draped around his neck, marking his honors and achievements in resplendent fashion. What a waste. What a mockery of life. What a blur. I don’t even remember what I said now but I do know that as I stood at that podium, my hands shaking as I tried to make out the words on my note card through the tears, I remembered trying to sing a song at my sister’s funeral and my voice breaking, breaking, breaking down into a ball on the floor, and being whisked back to my pew beside my shell-shocked parents. This was too much to ask of my name. What I would’ve given to be Susie or Amy or Jenny at that moment.

When I returned to university, my new friends enveloped me into their arms and comforted me by helping me forget. The one most instrumental in aiding my chemical memory loss, Joey, ironically became the second friend to break my heart by leaving the living. He made me forget but then brought it roaring back threefold as I sat at his funeral a few years later. I was learning that friendship isn’t always about laughs and good times. It’s also writing fucking eulogies.

But even through these tragedies, I learned an important lesson — don’t take your friends for granted. Don’t lose touch with those whom you’ve always felt a special bond but have moved away, moved on, chartered a different course from yours. Tell them how much they mean to you, work on improving your relationship, make sure they know they can count on you. Have fun, laugh, be silly. A true friend doesn’t require your thoughts to go through a filter before they escape your mouth.

And if, like me, you consider yourself a good friend, make it an inherent part of who you are. Live it like it’s your destiny, like it’s built into who you are. Kind of like it’s your name.

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