It was an experience that was very pleasing. I had distance on his life, and distance on his death. It was a piece about coming to realize that there were things I never knew, and still don't know, about Tom's life. Now I must do the wondering that we all must do, about the dead. I had to have a lot of good detail, and scenes.
All good writing has scenes.
I used the images of Tom through a photograph and his obituary to reel back into a deeper path, to the memory of our friendship. What I saw about his character was that I thought he was pathetic, even as a kid, but also in a way charming, and intelligent. He allowed me to be away from my own family, because his parents were older and we could run wild. I mostly used scenes, and an accumulating of detail which reveals his character. Our friendship was about fate.