Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Old Friends

There are people in our lives that we spend a great deal of time with, then move apart, and it never really returns to the same level of closeness. We may even have family that falls into that category. As the time passed they, or us, have changed. Their habits seem odd and their life choices don't resonate at all. In those times I wonder who changed? Could I have predicted this shift all those years ago? Do we seem as odd to them as they do to us? The path diverged, perhaps only a fraction of a degree, but in the intervening years this divergence has created a gulf that will probably never  be bridged. Facebook has accentuated this phenomenon. As I read of others lives and habits and hobbies I realize I don't know these people anymore. There isn't any way to connect the dots, they are simply too far apart. And as I take inventory of all the people who have wandered into and out of my life, it occurs to me that most of the people I have known fall into this category whether we were friends in elementary school, high school, college, young marrieds, or somewhere in between. We shared a moment of life, then moved on and the path only randomly reconnects. What disturbs me the most about this is if I am dreadfully honest, it simply does not bother me all that much. Which creates a low grade alarm within my psyche and surfaces the question (again) "What is wrong with me?"

But there are other people that seem to find their homes permanently in my heart. They may have entered my life 40-50 years ago, we don't see each other all that often, we don't call or email or go out of our way to communicate. But when we reconvene the friendship it is like no time has passed. The connection is instantaneous and it is as solid as it was all that time ago. The father of just one of those types of friends told us as a group this very thing 40 years ago, and he was right.

This past weekend we enjoyed another one of those moments. We had a lovely dinner, we drank some really nice wine, and we talked and talked and laughed and laughed. We shared war stories about our kids. We commiserated about our uncertainty about what to do with the "second half" of our lives. The jokes were old and seemed new. The concern over recent health scares was deep and distressing. My old friend's wife shared some of her recent struggles with the fall out from breast cancer and in describing some of the effects and trauma, she looked at me and made a comment about me not being comfortable with the details of the struggles. I always come up with the perfect thing to say about two weeks after the moment, but I wanted to tell her that my distress was not embarrassment over hearing about her physical struggles, but my distress had everything to do with feeling helpless to render any words of comfort or relief. It is my belief that by the age of 60 there is little to be embarrassed about. We have all had enough procedures to make us painfully aware that these bodies are falling apart, slow for some, quick for others, but inevitable for all. So once again my inability to speak plainly about my empathy was a clear indication of my slow-wittedness, rather than any sense of propriety.

But here is my take on this certain feature of our lives. I think the thing that I fear the most is outliving all my old friends. As I look out in concentric circles from my bride to our close current friends to our older friends to my childhood friends, what happens if they are all gone and I am left here with no one to "remember" with? My dad is 91, closing in on 92. He has no siblings left, my mother has been gone for 30 years, fortunately his current wife is still with him. But as I write this, all the friends that I remember him having when I was growing up are all gone. How does that compute with him? How does he look around and share the 9 decades with a group of people who have no idea what he is talking about? I don't necessarily want to be the first to go out of my group (although the crowd would be better at the funeral, half missing me, half making sure I'm gone) but I fear being the only one left. Our old friends are the life library that we can wander through and check out the books of our memories. These books of memories are stored in our shared lives.

This does give me great anticipation for the great uncounting. I hope we are able to recall our friends and the warm memories they bring. What good is this life if we remember nothing of it in the next? I am hoping that me and Fry and Wray can laugh in our next life about the nuttiness of this one. Do the Houston days with Hunters and Halls and Martins mean nothing in the bigger scope of eternity? It is my sincere hope that the Dillards and Hackneys and the Jollys can all remember the songs in the capitol building and the "crab award". Why should it be a requirement that these do not get to go with us? To some large extent, if the creator finds worth in my life enough to let me squeeze in, won't  my admission be in part because of the goodness of these friends and these memories?

So we got to enjoy a moment with old friends, tried and true friends, always friends.

Godspeed to all the friends out there. Friends are there to create the moments that teach us to cherish time. They mark our days and push back the nights.
Don