In Memoriam- Dom Margiotta

I just found out an old friend of mine, one of my first ever friends really, died yesterday of a heart attack. He couldn't have been more that thirty-five years old. He was an original member of the soccer team my father coached when I was four years old. And, he and a few other members of the original team, stuck around for years and years. At the time, we all lived in the same neighborhood in Clairemont. For many years, even after I moved to another neighborhood, my family and I kept in contact with many of these people.



It is the first person I know of, from my same age group, from within a certain group of friends, to have passed away. I do know some other people my same age, or a little older, who have had heart attacks. My friend who passed recently, always had a weight problem, but was also extremely athletic. I can't even remember the last time I saw him. As people grow older, especially with childhood friends, you grow apart in a way that's like you always expect to see the person again, no matter how much time passes.



Almost a decade ago, while I was going to Mesa College, Dom was in a film class with me. He had been accepted to UCSD after high school, obviously years before I was in the film class with him, but for personal/economic reasons had been forced to work full time and go to junior college to save money on tuition.



Looking back on how he was as a kid, and how I remember him that time ago when we had class together, and went out a few times to drink beer and play pool, he seemed like a completely different person. Not in a bad way, at all. In fact, his adult personality was much calmer and more rationale than his kid personality. Some people may find that statement odd, but I still feel, at times, like I behave exactly like I did when I was eight or nine years old. It's hard to explain.



Dom was one of the kids in our group who was always egging us on to bend and break rules, and defy authority to some extent. From what I remember, the last couple of times I saw him, he still had that attitude, and that kind of wit that allowed him to get away with it, but with a calmer, more intelligent way about him than he had in the past. I remember being surprised at how rationale a person he had become. I think maybe he had been through some serious shit at a younger age than a lot of us had been forced to go through it, and now, tragically, for some reason, he is the first person of that group of kids known as the "Brown Sharks," to have passed. (We were undefeated our first season. A fact my father will brag about endlessly, if you give him the chance.)



Stories and reminiscences I could tell about Dom, and the rest of these kids, and how we were, and how really, we led great childhoods, with our share of complaints, but not really that many complaints, or complaints that are too bad, could go on endlessly. I'll just leave this post with the wish, if it was possible, to see my old friend again, buy him a beer, and talk about old times, or just talk about nothing, and not even give a shit.

Crow With Silver Wings

In flocks, like a herd

Of wild horses

Crows storm toward

The sun.



Finding warmth in tempered

Weather is easy if one moves

Within a pack, and the lead

Wing has sun under it's sails.



It is Crow with silver feathers

That moves last, ensuring none

Of her companions

Falter, or are left behind.



She tends the forgotten flock

-Moving place to place

Within several yards-

Her silver underside a beacon



To those who might

Have lost their way.

And when she called to me

I said, "I am going this way,



At my measured pace."

And she, in courtesy,

Dipped her wing, revealing

The shine upon her dark body.



Then, she landed close by,

Telling me if I needed her,

I could find her there-



A mile behind the mass of her family

As they moved without suspicion

Any direction they chose to, with only

She as companion to my distraction-



The distraction of where I had to go

Without her- Both of us trusting

In each other's solitaire attrait-



Going separate ways, aware of each other's

Presence; that reassured us we would

Never truly be lost, and always

Find our way home.