“God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled.”

My friend Kevin got in a car accident last night. He hit a tree and was killed. I just found out a few hours ago.

I haven't seen him or even talked to him since he moved to Cincinnati after freshman year of high school... although I think about him a lot. He was one of my favorite people at Hanover Central, and one of the few who I remember fondly from my years spent there. He was just such a great guy... always smiling and laughing and making other people laugh. He had really chubby cheeks and used to hold his breath till his face turned blue. He had freckles on his nose and under his eyes.

I remember this one time at The House on Alexander Street... there was a whole bunch of us just hanging out... Gretchen, Mike, Bryant, Stewie, Tricia, Kyle, Kevin, Julie, and me... for some reason I went into one of the bedrooms for a while, and I heard Stephanie come in the house. We didn't get along, and once she saw that I wasn't with everyone else, she must have assumed I wasn't there and she started talking shit. Kevin was the first one to stick up for me and put that bitch in her place. Even though Stephanie was one of The Populars and probably made fun of Kevin for sticking up for me, he didn't care... he did it anyway.

He sat behind me in Mr. Landis's freshman English class. We worked on our impromptu speeches together. We made fun of Mr. Landis more than anyone else, I think, when he put up a collection can on his desk after someone stole his stapler. We exchanged knowing glances when Mr. Landis fastforwarded through the sex scene in the old version of "Romeo and Juliet." (Mr. Landis was obviously gay, we thought, and this only confirmed it.)

We used to call him Chaps. Or Chappy... Chapstick... Chapsalot... Chapsenstein... Chapalap... any variation of the word.

He got the nickname because when he was a little boy he went to the gas station with his mom and stole a tube of chapstick. He showed it to her later and she promptly took him back to the store and made him return the chapstick and apologize to the attendant. Somewhere along the line, we found out about this lovely anecdote and thus originated one of the best nicknames in the history of the universe.

He was one of the handful of people I was actually looking forward to seeing at our class reunions. One of the few decent guys I've met in my life and definitely one I'll remember fondly.

Rest in peace, Chappapotamos. Continue the Shenanigans.