I was not expecting the previous “My Friend Stipura” entry to resonate with so many people.
When I sat down to write it, I was really only trying to preserve my memory of him.
I have noticed that people rarely leave us entirely. Instead, they settle into the places and things around us. A particular song. An old photograph. A conversation that resurfaces years later for reasons you cannot quite explain. Then one day you stumble across one of them and immediately think of someone who once occupied that corner of your life.
That is what happened with Stipura.
My family already knew how much he meant to me. They had heard stories about him for years. What surprised me was how many people reached out afterward to tell me about someone in their own life.
It made me realize that perhaps the story was never really about Stipura alone.
Perhaps it was about the people we carry with us.
I have also noticed that memory is not always interested in the things we think are important. What stays with me is rarely the thing I expected to remember. It is usually a conversation, a place, or a person. Something that seemed insignificant at the time, but slowly grows more meaningful with distance.
Over the past few months, I have found myself writing more often. Sometimes after work. Sometimes late at night. Sometimes while I should probably be doing something else entirely.
I have never really questioned it. If a story feels worth remembering, I write it down.
Lately I have been thinking about how quickly life is changing. Soon I will be moving and beginning graduate school. The days already seem to be moving faster than I would like, which makes taking the time to preserve these stories feel even more important.
Part of me worried writing would become one of those things I would eventually return to when life became less busy.
The response to my last post made me reconsider that. Maybe writing deserves a permanent place in my life.
Not because I think my stories are extraordinary.
But because the people in them are.
In a few weeks I will be returning to Bosna. The excitement is almost too much for me to handle. There are family members I cannot wait to see, roads I want to walk again, and places that seem to grow more meaningful each time I visit them. If the past is any indication, I suspect I will return with a few more stories worth telling.
If there is one thing I have learned recently, it is that stories become more meaningful when they are shared.
So thank you.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for sharing your own memories.
And thank you for reminding me that taking the time to remember people is never time wasted.
