Sasha

Tonight I was just mindlessly surfing thru the Internet - reading the news, and I just happened upon an article from nearly 3 years ago.  It was about a man I knew as a little boy - his name was Sasha.  Sasha Clapper.  My mom was his babysitter back in the 70's.  The house this little boy lived in (with his parents Jim and Debbie) was my dream house.  It was on Highway 6 near the dam.  It was contemporary, with a skylight and a red kitchen!  I was entranced by that house the first time I saw it.  I was a teenager then.  In the years that came to pass, I actually was fortunate enough to own and live in that wonderful home for a number of years, until my marriage ended and I left that house.  This post is not about that house, though.  It's about the loss of a sweet little boy; a precocious little boy in the day.  Tonight in reading a news article in a Portland newspaper some 3 years ago, I learned that my little Sasha died in a motorcycle accident in April 2009.  I saw his picture.  His eyes were the same eyes I remembered in that sweet little boy.  Dark eyes.  Eyes that could look right thru you.  Sasha is gone now - having been taken away in the best years of his life.  He left behind his parents, Jim and Debbie (whom we knew - Jim was a professor at USC) and his brother, Evan and other family members.    To them, the grief has probably dulled as it has been nearly 3 years.  For me it is still a shock, having only learned of this tonight.  My days at "The Clapper House" are full of memories. Some wonderful; and in my last days there before leaving, some pretty traumatic.  I have a picture of little Sasha somewhere.  You know I am a packrat, so of course I still have it....someplace.  I'll find it.  And I will probably write Jim and Debbie a letter soon - just to let them know how sorry I am to have learned of their loss.  Sasha, you lived life LARGE.  We should all learn to do the same.  Make each and every day the best we possibly can.  You did......
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                                                         Sasha Clapper 1973-2009