When We Fall Away and Time Passes

The other day I went to a memorial service for a long-ago friend. I looked around to see who I recognized and spotted two faces. Once I began mingling, I discovered I knew several others who I hadn’t recognized because they’d either grown into adults or grown old, as both will change your looks.

Nancy, the deceased, had been a soccer mom in our big soccer clan when our kids were young. She was a lovely lady, and I enjoyed the time we spent together, but eventually, we fell out of touch when our sons migrated to different teams under the same coach. There were no sideline chats or tournament excursions to keep the friendship updated.

Even though our kids are grown and working, we soccer parents still meet up for casual potlucks together, but Nancy never attended these. It must have suited her, and this is obviously fine, but I thought about her and often asked if anyone had heard from her or her husband.

At the memorial, their daughter got up and spoke. She made several thoughtful points but then mentioned this was her second memorial service in two weeks. A friend of hers had tragically passed and at the service, she reconnected with old friends from youth whom she hadn’t seen in many years. Her point — why do we wait for funerals to meet back up? I nodded my head and pocketed the thought to carry with me.

What was it like in the past?

Sometimes I try to imagine what it was like to live in a cave with a small clan way back in the day. On a cold night, we probably snuggled together, a clump of jumbled but similar life. We wouldn’t fall away from each other, less we risk death. Being clumped together meant staying alive.

Much later, our clans grew and became villages. On cold nights we’d be bedded down on hay-stuffed mattresses near the fire, and we’d rarely live out a night without the sound of other sleeping souls nearby. We were an interactive mix of creative partners working towards the goal of thriving.

Villages turned into towns where, still, townspeople lived their entire lives among the same set of family and friends. There were cities, too, but no cars yet, or highways or planes.

Fast forward to now, when it’s not only expected we move from group to group through life but that we might infrequently keep in touch or even never hear from each other again. We create small clans from which we learn, then we leave the group to form a new clan elsewhere, and this is now the flow of life. Schools to jobs to activities to neighbors — they shift and morph.

As I get older, it’s an odd feeling to stand at my window, looking out, contemplating my past, trying to remember the names of people with whom I made pivotal turns in life. These folks were my important tribe at one time, and now I can hardly recall their faces, let alone their names.

Finding each other

Sometimes I try to find long-lost pals online. Not long ago I decided to find a friend from graduate school. If you ever sit in a Zoom meeting with me, you’ll see the small textile piece she brought back from India long ago as a random, friendship gift. It was one of the kindest surprise gifts I’ve ever gotten, and she was one of the sweetest of people I’ve known.

A quick internet search located her. She’s still in Brooklyn and married to a lawyer. I found her through an educational foundation she and her husband help manage for the advancement of research and education on the very rare disease their daughter has. I looked up the disease and found life expectancy for someone afflicted with this condition doesn’t often surpass the age her daughter is now, which is the same age as my sons. My heart fell over.

This woman, who was my peer years ago — a fellow student, a sweetheart, a friend — had been traveling a tough path I had no inkling about. While I traveled along my own wiggly line of time there was another wiggle that stretched from the juncture when I last saw her. This was her path, and while I imagined she was moving along it, I had no earthly idea whether she moved with ease or difficulty. I only assumed she was still moving somewhere somehow.

Old connections remain

In the case of my friend Nancy, I’m glad I learned of her passing and went to the memorial service to give her husband a hug. Once he realized who I was, he let out a gasp. He couldn’t believe such a long-ago friend had shown up at his wife’s service. I could tell he was touched. I was relieved. Did I belong there? It’d been a long time, after all.

If I put myself in his shoes, I guess I’d feel the same. Falling away seems to be something we all just naturally do, but in the corners of our hearts and memory, we still hold the closeness we shared with others long ago. We wonder whether that connection is still alive — whether we still mean anything to each other.

I’m grateful I was able to say to this widower — yes, we absolutely do.

One of the projects I’d like to tackle is what I call my Thank You Project. It’s a series of letters I’d write to as many people as I can think of to thank them for the place they hold in my life. Mostly, I want to thank people for their intentional or accidental positive influence — both of which send us on our way better for it. We’ll never know all the ways we’ve had a positive effect on others’ lives, but wouldn’t it be life-affirming to discover even just a bit of it?

Tis the season to reach out and say hello.