Missing a friend.

Last weekend I was at a home get together with some friends. One girl has an albino cornsnake that she adopted last semester (from the school's teaching program actually!) and was telling us about how it had decided it no longer wanted to live in its little snake hut and burrowed in the shavings instead. Today in toxicology, we were discussing snake venom and the specifics of the snakes, their behavior and signs of a snakebite toxicosis in a pet, etc.

All this talk of reptiles reminds me (always has and always will) of a really close friend of mine, Nick. We met when I was a high school student interning at the small animal clinic where he was employed. Although different ages, we quickly became friends and spent a lot of time working together and partying together. Nick had graduated from Maryland, where I was doing my undergraduate work, and came back to take an extra class; consequentially we spent a few nights a week together at the dining hall just hanging out and talking. Nick was super passionate about herptology (the study of reptiles) and was working on his most recently application to veterinary school. He'd been rejected something like six times, but it never stopped him. He finally got into St. George's in Grenada and was well on his way to becoming a brilliant herp vet. We worked together last summer while I was home on summer break at the same small animal hospital; I still remember a particular amazing complete spinal radiograph we did together. He agonized over a perfect shot while I sweated and cursed in my lead gown. A visiting radiologist said it was the nicest spinal radiograph he'd ever seen!

While home on winter break, I had my bridal shower. A lot of the ladies from the small animal clinic attended and one in particular said that Nick was back home too and that I should come and visit him, that it would cheer him up to see me. I didn't go to the office Christmas party that night because Danny's family was in town for the shower, but I planned to stop by during the week.

Decemeber 19th, a few days later, Nick died suddenly. My heart is still broken. But whenever I hear Brad Paisley on the radio or someone is talking about some crazy reptile, I can't help but smile.