Dear Joanie,
You don't know me but I was a classmate and friend of Shawn's back in high school. I was profoundly saddened when I learned that he had passed away. Sad for you, of course, and for your children. Sad for his co-workers and friends and for his extended family. But also, I felt sad because I lost touch with Shawn only a few years after our graduation. As I see the tributes from others who knew him well as an adult, I can't help but regret that we lost touch. From the stories they tell, it sounds like he was an extraordinary man, keeping the same characteristics in adulthood that made him an extraordinary friend as a kid.
If I "squint my mind's eye" back a little more than 30 years, I can still see him as he was then, leaning on the lockers in the hallway at CHS, chatting away in his good-natured way, laughing that little laugh of his. I see him sitting in many of my classes. I see him with his tuba in the band room. I see his car, a Pacer which we called the "Pregnant Pinto". The other girls and I used to tease him about that car and periodically we would "vandalize" it with toilet paper, streamers, etc., while it sat in the high school parking lot. Shawn and I played tennis together, worked at the same golf course, went on adventures to downtown Minneapolis with a bunch of friends, and played a few harmless pranks on people.
I dug out my old yearbooks yesterday, and found myself crying as I looked at the pictures and read what Shawn had written to me on those pages. I can honestly say that every memory I have of him is a "sunny" one. He was truly a good-hearted person. I am confident that I can speak for my classmates when I say that we were privileged to know him, and he will be missed.
May God's love and comfort overwhelm you at this time of grief.
Remembering Shawn Fondly,
Janet (Kamerud) Emerson
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