Danny- 8/22/11

In chapter 17 in my book, Lost in Place, Mark’s dear friend Michael Dempsey was headed for disaster. Scott was concerned for Michael, considering all the drugs he was using, and as soon as he told Mark about what he was up to, Mark grew a little bit concerned for Michael as well. Lenny being care free had no worries for Michael which is idiotic because he was obviously in trouble. After Mark had heard about what Michael was going through he saw him, and Scott was completely right. Mark did not see Michael; he had seen somebody else, a complete different person. Michael was not himself, and he looked absolutely terrible. He looked whacked out of his mind, over-weight, a puffy face, and he was exhausted. Later in the chapter, Michael died because had fallen asleep behind the wheel and crashed, Lenny was in the car as well but he came out of the accident alright. When Mark and the rest of his friends found out about it, they were devastated. Even Sensei O’Keefe, who attended Michael’s funeral.

This part in the book is very similar to an experience I had gone through in high school. I had a friend named John who was into heavy drugs, we were not great friends, we were acquainted and had hung out a few times, but I was friends with a lot of the kids he was good friends with. Whenever I would see John he would get progressively worse with the drugs he was using. John’s closest friends sort of drifted away from him because he just was not himself anymore, and everybody pretty much gave up on him. One day I received a call from a friend that John had grown up with, he told me John had passed away from an overdose. Even though John and I were not close, I still felt the pain that John’s closest friends had felt; everybody did because the whole situation with him was entirely drug related and just overall unfortunate. At John’s funeral I thought a lot about the times that we were together, and the very few friends that he had. It was then that I realized that John and I were closer than I thought, this feeling dawned on me, and the pain I felt inside my heart was just as bad as it would be if he were family, which in a way he was.