Absent Friends

Her name was Sarah, and she was once my friend.

Many years ago (more than twenty), I knew her. She and her husband Frank were among the best friends I ever had. Frank was a funny man, a true and natural humorist. Sarah was beautiful, not only in the physical sense, but her spirit as well.

Frank and I had a falling out shortly after he and Sarah divorced; I won't get into details, but when your best friend decides to celebrate his divorce by sleeping with your wife, things go downhill from there.

Sarah and I remained in contact for a while after their divorce; too soon, however, she moved back to her old hometown of Phillips, Wisconsin. And I split with my wife soon thereafter, and began to rebuild my life.

Unfortunately, I found little or no time to keep in touch with any friends that I had made during my ill-fated marriage--and that included Sarah. She was often in my thoughts, even if I never took the time to bring her back into my life.

Fast forward twenty years or so. Two marriages failed, and a third going strong. My wife and I began to vacation 'up north' as we say here in Wisconsin...and the 'up north' area we were in just happened to be within striking distance of Sarah's hometown.

For the past three years, I had asked around in Phillips about Sarah, using her maiden name (which she resumed after her divorce). All to no avail. No one seemed to know her. As it turned out, I was just not asking the right people.

This summer, on my way out of Phillips enroute to home, I stopped to fill up the gas tank on our rented van. On the spur of the moment, I happened to ask the clerk at the station if she knew Sarah's family (I used her maiden name). To my surprise, she replied that she knew the family --and mentioned that Sarah had married a Phillips resident. She told me that her mother still lived in Phillips, and looked up the phone number for me.

I thanked her, and remarked that I was looking forward to getting in touch with Sarah. She asked me to wait, and called out to her co-worker, and asked if she knew Sarah G.

To my dismay, the worker replied that she did--and that she had died earlier this year.

Numbly, I thanked them, and I went back out to the van. All the way home, my thoughts revolved around Sarah, and the unusual grief that I felt at hearing of her death.

Perhaps it was my own mortality that I felt at the point; perhaps it was the thought that I had lost yet another absent friend. Regardless of what it was, I resolved to never put off contacting someone who was in my thoughts again--because if I did, it might just be too late.

I am old enough now to realize that I am not going to live forever. If I ever thought that, I was just being foolish. More often now, I am faced with mortality--the death of a friend, a family member, even the death of a friend's child.

None of us live forever, and today is all we have. Tomorrow always comes, but not for all of us. I could be dead tomorrow--or one of my friends could be.

So I have resolved to live today, and make the most of what life I have left, be it a day or fifty years. I have friends and loved ones who I need to be in touch with more often, with more quality, if for no other reason than the fact that if I die tomorrow, the memories that people have of me are my only real immortality. As long as someone remembers me, I am not truly gone.

And I want to be remembered. Fondly, if possible.

But remembered nonetheless.

And so it goes...