Last weekend my wife and I went to visit a friend we hadn’t seen in many years. I first met our friend through her husband who had been my best friend my last three years in college. We became neighbors for many years, and lost touch after I moved away from the neighborhood. We met again in Iran on a construction project, I was involved in, that was also the backdrop for my first book, “The Chabahar Incident”. We spent a little over a year there together, I married my second wife there and my old college buddy stood up for me.
Not long after our return to the United States, my old college buddy passed away from a brain tumor. After several years of agony and remorse my buddies wife remarried again and we saw eachother occasionally at weddings, a Super Bowl party or two, and then we both moved away to distant places. We exchanged Chistmas cards, but soon lost touch.
Recently I heard that she had experienced some marital issues and was now alone. I was devistated and wanted to console her, but unable to contact her. I asked my daughter to try and find her contact information and we were successful in getting together last weekend. My wife and I were going to my Granddaughter’s Club Volleyball Tournament where it so happened our friend lived near-by.
We went to her house at 5:30PM where we chatted over a few glasses of wine and killer Bruschetta Pomodoro appetizer, and went out to dinner. At the lovely dinner we talked endlessly of our good times and hard patches we learned that our 72 year old friend was dating, which we thought was marvelous. We talked about my old college buddy with love and reverence, and brought the wonderful evening to a close around 11 PM. Hugs, kisses and heartfelt “I love you’s” sent us on our way.
It was as if we had never lost touch, we just carried on like it was yesterday that we were last together. There is a lot more to this story, as you can imagine, but suffice to say real friendships seamlessly go on through the years and never change, never falter and never lose their veracity.
