You know, you never know how great stuff is at the time. Or at least I don't. When I was hanging out with Johnny and Dally before all that stuff happened, the fountain in the park and Johnny killing the soc and everybody dying, before that stuff. Just the ordinary days hanging out and smoking and joking and laughing. But I couldn't enjoy them, and I didn't know how nice it was. I was worrying about stuff and feeling bad about stuff and I thought I was kind of miserable. I was miserable over my parents being dead and Darry always being on my case and I was miserable worrying about college and worrying about being a greaser. Johnny knew I worried about that, thought I might be stuck a greaser my whole life. I had a friend who really got things, who understood things, and I didn't even realize it. Like his teachers I had underestimated him. I didn't realize how smart he really was until we stayed at the church and I heard him analyzing the book and the Robert Frost poem. And I hadn't realized how smart he was about other stuff, too, like how you can't be so upset over certain things, not if you'll have the ability to change them.

And it wasn't just Johnny who I misjudged, and I considered Johnny to be one of my best friends. It was Dally, too, who I never even really liked. I was afraid of him. But I never saw how he cared about Johnny, and how he would go out of his way to help us, risking getting killed by Darry, risking getting in trouble with the cops, risking everything just to help us. I guess I didn't think he had it in him, and I didn't think Johnny understood half of the things he understood. Johnny was smarter than me in a lot of ways, and he understood a lot more than I did. I thought I was so smart because of school. I thought I was above him because I did better in school, but that wasn't all of it.

I wonder why that is, this taking things for granted. Maybe that's just the way it is, maybe it's impossible to really appreciate anything until it's gone. Like my parents. They were so loving and understanding. They were really great parents, and I've seen parents who were worse. Like Steve's dad always getting angry and fighting with him, then giving him money to try and make up for it. Like Two-bit's dad who just up and left, like Dally's parents who are similar to Johnny's, and then Johnny's parents, the worst I've seen. You could hear his mother screaming at him clear down to our house if she was mad at him.

The looking back was getting to me, it was time to move forward. It was just gone, things were gone. My parents, my buddy Johnny, my belief that things couldn't be so bad, but that belief had begun to shatter with the deaths of my parents. I've just got to go on, and see if I can't appreciate some things as they're occurring, and not after it's all over.

But I can't help but miss those days. I miss playing pinball with Johnny at the pool hall, seeing him smile if he got a good score. I miss hanging out at the little diners scattered around, going to the drive-in's, hanging out at the lot smoking, talking. I can't help but miss it, and I know I didn't fully appreciate it. I took it for granted. Maybe I should try to not take all this for granted, because it isn't permanent. And maybe Johnny's last words about staying gold is kind of impossible. How exactly do you do that? The years and the experiences harden you, like they hardened Dally, how can you prevent that? I don't know. It seems kind of difficult to stay so open to things, to be so sensitive. This world tries to break you. Maybe it isn't vicious or vindictive but it occurs just the same.

I felt the pang of memories sneaking up on me. When I wasn't expecting it I'd remember something, and forget for the tiniest second that both Dally and Johnny were dead, then I'd remember and it would feel like they were dying all over again.

I have some goals. I want to be able to appreciate the stuff as it happens. I want to try and stay gold, like Johnny said, but I'm a little fuzzy on it. And I want to stop being so judgmental of people, because Johnny and Dally taught me just how wrong I can be about that. I was wrong about them, and I'd known both of them my entire life.

So that's it. I didn't know when this feeling, this melancholy, would leave. How long did grief last? Maybe it never ended, maybe it only varied in intensity, like a radio station that was sometimes turned too low to hear. Right now the radio station of grief was turned up as loud as it could go, and I was covering my ears. But it didn't help.