Do What You Love

Last night we witnessed the conclusion of the greatest show and story ever told. I won’t bother giving a summation or synopsis (if either can be truly given to such a masterfully complex story). I will however tell you of when my journey with LOST began. Unfortunately, I didn’t begin watching when the show first came on. Like many other naive and ignorant people, I thought this was going to be some poppy shallow story loosely based on Survivor. What a fool was I. All that changed when my brother Tim Ricchuiti introduced it to me at his apartment off of Grand Avenue in Dallas. This was early Spring 2006, or in real time Season Two. I was hooked by the end of the first episode. I remember even going to his apartment to watch episodes as he took off to go hang out with our mutual friends…catching up with LOST was more important than friends. He eventually lent me his hard drive and big screen Dell so I could really go at it. I sat day in and day out in total darkness in my dorm room at Lincoln Hall. I was in love, confused, amazed, and haunted. After two weeks I was up to date and began watching LOST in real time. A group of us (me, Tim, Scotty, Doug, and Diggy Dog) began going to a house full of girls from PCPC to watch it (primarily; secondarily, for the girls). It was wonderful. That lasted for two seasons. I was in Huntington, WV for the Season Three finale. I remember feeling so lost in wonderment. Tim and I talked for hours about what it could all mean as soon as the show ended in Central Time for him. We were so sick and devastated that we’d have to wait so long for the next season. How I wish I could have that feeling now…the next season.

Season Four found all of us at Laura Coggin’s place, with some new people also. This was the most beautiful in my opinion. So many of us gathered for one purpose, and one purpose alone. Season Five found a handful of us at Austin’s house. We were the LOST boys (me, Tim, Doug, and Austin). Then life happened, and I moved. I watched the first half of Season Six on Main Street in Buckhannon, WV, and the second half at John Rodger’s place near Ritter Park in Huntington, WV. We (me, Whitney, John, and Cai…with Carl awaiting us) would run out of house church and mad dash it over just in time for it to start. Last night we gathered together to say goodbye to an old friend. Many didn’t get LOST. They weren’t ready for it. They couldn’t accept not having certain questions answered. A few of us were enraptured. 

LOST, thank you for four and a half years of wonder, and a lifetime of stories. I wish I could go back.

I’m proud to say that I lived in the time of LOST. Where were you on May 23, 2010?