Dear Mason

I would have posted "Happy birthday! :D" on your Facebook wall today. I still did that; however, I did it with a tear. For some reason, even though your birthday was still listed on your page, Facebook didn't notify me of that fact today. Somehow seems as if even fb knew that you were no longer able to be the recipient of nonchalantly posted birthday wishes.

Mason, I wish you were still here. If you were, I could have left a somewhat meaningless and shallow "Happy birthday!" just like everyone else, along with a "How are you doing this summer-after-we-haven't-seen-each-other-for-the-week-and-a-half-after-summer-school/research-ended?" on your wall.

You didn't have to go, did you? Pretty soon, I'll be older than you'll ever got to be.

I have to laugh whenever I think about the time when your girlfriend introduced my best friend to your other friends as "Mason's 'other woman.'" Sadly enough, I wasn't there to witness it.

I wish that I had gotten to know you better. Every time I think about how much I know such-and-such, there's always so much more that I don't know about them. That couldn't be more true with someone like you.

I hope you get this message. I don't know how things work in heaven, but I'm sure you're watching over us too. In my mind I think that even though there's no one there to physically answer all those messages that you would have gotten, I'm sure you're getting them somehow. :>

- A fellow Math major, friend, and sister in Christ.