It was January. He answered the phone, said my name and then asked,"Is that you?" His voice brought back a flood of memories. I asked if she was there, and when I heard her voice, it was as if all the years came barreling into focus: the elementary years of playing at her house (the house that is gone now), the jr. & sr. high years of choir trips, boys, slumber parties and football games and even the brief college years full of dorm life, concerts, etc... It was a lifetime ago and somehow, just yesterday.
It had been probably twenty years since we'd last spoken, and yet, it was comfortable, familiar. We shared about our lives. We crammed as much of the twenty years as possible into a ten minute phone call. She had married her high school sweet heart (sweet Richard). I had married my college sweetheart. She asked about my family. I asked about England, and work and finding each other. The time went much too quickly to share a lifetime of memories, to answer years of questions. I wondered how long it would be before we talked again. After all, she lives about as far south as you can get. I live almost to the top of the world (not really).
Today, she sent a note. "I'm in (town)." Of course, she didn't mean my town. She meant my hometown. The place I grew up. The place we grew up together. She's there until May. I'm going in ten days. The distance between Texas and Wisconsin just got very small. I'll do what I always do when I'm there. I'll travel old roads full of memories, loaded with the stories of my childhood. I'll show my children my favorite places, and I'll tell them for the hundredth time, "That's where I went to school." I'll search in the windows of passing cars for a familiar face and wonder where the time and the people went. But this time, this trip, I will hug an old friend, cram some more of the twenty years into a few brief minutes, and smile as the years and distance fade away, if only for that moment.
What a wonderful blessing. Hope you have a great trip:)
ReplyDelete