October Fifteenth

I was sitting alone in my Berlin apartment on Renate-Privat Strasse when I received the news by letter, several months after the fact (there was no email in those days): a clipped notice from my college alumni magazine. It flashed through my mind that I couldn’t remember the first time I saw Laura, and a sudden mélange of regret and remorse spread over me. I felt lightheaded. “That’s not true.” I remember when I first saw her. It was the fall semester. I had enrolled in an English literature class, the only “lit” class I would take in college. It was an odd choice, mixed in with courses in history and philosophy (and a writing course in “advanced composition”), since I never read literature. I fancied myself an intellectual, which is what a high school teacher had exhorted my AP European History classmates and I to become. I held philosophy in the highest esteem next to my major, history. At the time, I simply didn’t find literature intellectual enough. But I signed up for “Comedy Classics,” an introduction to literate, and literary, wit, taught by an itinerate assistant professor, Dr Shattuck. It was in this class that I first saw Laura. But when I first saw her, I could not recall. I didn’t really know what Laura saw in me. In my mind’s eye, I was not someone anyone would notice unless it was of necessity, like an admissions officer or hostess at McDonalds. Whatever it was, it must have had something to do with sitting next to each other in the first week of class. I may have noticed her first. The class read aloud works by Shakespeare and, because we sat next to each other, we often read together. Laura and I eventually adopted Bard appropriate nicknames. She was Laurino.

Laura Lane Leathers. I would notice a name like that then, its perfect alliteration. Then I imagine I would have noticed her eyes: green blue, two gemstones set below soft, dark blond hair. But her physical beauty didn’t strike me at first; that came later. After all, I was in a relationship. When it ended suddenly, a few weeks into the semester, Laura was there for me then and was with me afterwards. I loved her for that (as I still do). I recall all of this now, just as I did then, when the airmail letter arrived at its destination on the coffee table. I wish I could remember more about the exact moment the random act of mutual recognition occurred, because she is no longer be able to remind me.

Laura was always interesting, never dull or predictable. Never to be forgotten, she is forever, dearly missed.

Laura Lane Leathers, d. October 15, 1991

. . . because I knew you, I have been changed for good.