Matt Kraft is Dead

Today is my first day back home for spring break. Yesterday, my good friend Judd called me, number one to ask me when I'm coming home (I don't know why, I swear Judd has like a sixth sense, such that he can magically tell that I am home by some divine inspiration. Whenever I go home, I usually get a call from Judd within one hour of getting in the door). Number two, he told me that an old acquaintance of ours, Matt Kraft, had died.

Now I never liked Matt Kraft. The first time we met him was in Rich's card shop back in 8th grade, and he was an asshole. A complete asshole. Not only was he a real jerk when you played Magic against him, but he also ripped you off in trades, and occasionally stole your cards. Needless to say, we all didn't like him. After a couple years, Matt stopped coming back to the card shop. Maybe he got bored of it, or maybe he matured a little. Either way, he sold all his cards and we never saw him ever again. Some years later, whenever we go back to the card shop, we usually reminisce about the old days, when life was simpler, grades were unimportant, and the real world wasn't coming at us at full speed. And usually, we would think back and eventually land at least one or two snide remarks about how much an asshole Matt Kraft was. "Yea, he was such an asshole." "Wow, I'm really glad he never came back." And now he's dead.

It really makes me think about the impassable limit on all life. And how all of our frivolous hatred and mistrust and disdain for one another is so completely meaningless in the big picture. When Matt Kraft was active in my life (meaning I saw him more than once every 3 years), I hated him. When he was out of my life, I still managed to retain memories of how much I disliked him. But now that he's dead, it all seems so empty, so purposeless. I guess it just goes to show that no matter how much you dislike someone, you should never wish death on anybody. You can wish they could change; you can wish you could change. You can wish they would leave you alone, or that you could get away from them. But never death. Because if someone dies, that ends the game. There's no reconciliation, there's no hatred, there's no perpetuating the game. Death brings it all to an end.

As a tribute to Matt Kraft, and the ideas that his death has brought out in me, I first say, "thank you." Thank you for giving me the most vivid example of how meaningless our hatreds and prejudices are. With that, I present "Runnin (Dying to Live)," by Notorious B.I.G and 2pac. "I would never wish death on nobody, you know what I'm saying? Cause there's no coming back from that."