When my mother asked me if I knew a Paula Mulder, I originally thought it was because I had received an odd piece of mail or something similar. I told her I had never even heard the name, and then went off to Google it in the hopes that something would turn up. This is nothing new for me; I’m a journalist at heart and when something like this comes up I’ll look into it to the best of my ability.
What I found was heartbreaking. Paula Mulder, 21, and her mother, 48, had been shot dead in their Egg Harbor Township home. They lived no more than five minutes away from where I grew up.
The news this morning revealed something even more unexpected: the accused murderer was Nicholas Nigro III, a 25-year-old kid who used to be on my bus stop.
Several years back, another kid – I call them kids because it’s hard to believe we’re anything else – from the bus stop was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was 20 at the time.
I knew the latter pretty well, though I would never make the stretch to say we were friends. He wasn’t a bad person. Made a lot of questionable decisions and always found himself in trouble in one form or another, but I never made the assumption he’d end up in prison for the death – accidental as it was – of another human being. I am presently glad to say I didn’t know Nick more than by name and face.
It’s easy to look back on the past fondly and think about when things weren’t always so incredibly complicated, and I suspect we’re all guilty of doing it once in a while. Lately, though, as I run what feels like the millionth Google search for anyone by the name Ron Bybee – another bus stop veteran who graduated the year before me and simply disappeared – and hoping maybe I’d be able to finally re-connect with my best friend of more than half a decade, I find myself thinking more and more about exactly how fragile our lives can be. One small set of circumstances one way or the other, one mistake, one good choice or one bad choice and suddenly the future looks far different from what we may have been expecting.
I’ve thought a lot about Jade Benecoff – one of my closer friends through high school and, prior to that, art classes at Cygnus – getting into a horrendous car accident right down the street from where she lived and being reduced to … well, I’m not sure what. I haven’t been able to talk to her since. None of our mutual friends have, either, as far as I’m aware. I have no idea where she is or what she’s doing. Don’t know if she needs constant assistance or has found a way to live on her own. Don’t know if maybe she managed to fully recover. Couldn’t tell you a single thing about her past that day, only a few days after senior prom, when she was broadsided on a blind corner.
She was a phenomenal artist. Would’ve pursued that, I assume. We always sat next to or across from each other in our art classes. Since that day – since she was no longer around to spur me – I’ve more or less given up on art. I still draw cartoons, and every once in a while when my mind drifts I’ll catch myself sketching something, but by and large it has become something I “used to do” when it used to be something I planned on doing for a living.
How does stuff like this even occur? How does my best friend – a brilliant guy with limitless potential who could’ve gone to any college in the country if only he had the money and motivation – become someone I haven’t seen or heard from in more than five years? How does another good friend become a practical recluse after a tragic car accident and how have I gone five years without speaking to her? How do two kids I shared a bus stop with end up being charged with the deaths of fellow human beings?
What the hell happened?
I’ve remarked a few times to friends and family that it’s weird getting older because you start noticing that people you grew up idolizing have changed, moved on or even passed away. I’m only 23, and yet it feels as if I’ve already lost – through lack of communication or any other circumstances – so many people.
I guess the lesson to be learned through loss and widening gaps of time and geography is that you should never – under any circumstances – assume that anything is permanent. Never assume that the friendships you have and maintain are capable of surviving without effort once the real world comes calling. Things happen. Some are tragic, some less so. Either way, you need to be prepared to handle these things as they occur in order to keep in touch with those who mean the most to you.
Knowing some of these things are inevitable doesn’t make it any easier, though, and when I look back on some of the circumstances my fellow classmates and friends have had to deal with, I get overwhelmed at how much it all just seems like such a crapshoot. What if Jade had been only seconds earlier or later pulling out of that blind corner? What if I had made sure to keep in touch with Ron? What if I had actually helped out with any number of the mischievous activities some of the kids on Ivins were up to? Where would I be today if I had chosen different people to emulate?
I miss Ron. I miss Jade. Lord help me, I even miss the Ivins Avenue troublemakers.
What’s the best course of action when you feel terrible just for growing up happy and relatively care-free?
