I was sent to a Military Junior College out
West. About 10 or 12 of us prep players
began meeting as we arrived on that warm day in late June to begin football
practice and get our class schedules setup for the fall. We were assigned roommates and my roommate
was a prep fellow from the mid-west. My new friend/roommate and I had a great
year together studying, doing military drills and playing in football games all
over the Western U.S. – from El Paso, Texas, to Long Beach, California, to
Boise, Idaho. We were one win away from
playing in the Junior College Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, but it didn’t happen.
We both qualified academically to enter the freshman
class at the sponsoring college in June of that next year. Once at our new 4-year college, we became
separated, living in different quarters on opposite sides of the large
dormitory. Our main contact time was at
football practices. After college and
during my second year of marriage, my old roommate and friend made a trip to
visit me and my wife for a few days. We
showed him around our historic city’s downtown area and we had some good meals
and conversation together. The night
before my friend was to fly home, and my wife had gone to bed, he and I sat in
the living room chatting. The
conversation moved into politics and before long it was obvious that he and I
were on opposite ends of the political spectrum. We had never before discussed politics.
I then allowed myself to become “politically” angry
with my friend, saying some things and acting in a way that I regretted for the
next 43-years. I stormed off to bed leaving my friend behind and barely spoke
to him the next morning as we got up and went to the airport. At that point I had written him off as a friend.
It would be 43-years before I would speak to or see my friend.
The next twenty or so years I was busy with my job,
marriage, community volunteering and helping my dear wife raise our
children. I didn’t think about my friend
very much. When I did, I was sure that
he was probably happier than me that we disconnected, especially after the way
I treated him on his visit many years before.
Fortunately, early in my marriage my wife led me into the church. I soon became part of a Christian Community
and started to grow and mature in my relationship with the Lord. During the past 20- years, I have thought
more about my friend and have suffered from guilt for my part in our long
separation.
I started checking phone listings in my friend’s
home town to no avail. Phone calls
became dead ends. With the advent of the
internet and its ability to provide people searches, I continued to look for my
old friend and prayed that he would forgive me if I was able to connect with
him. I was afraid that he would reject
me and had written me off as I had him.
By now we were separated by 43-years with not much hope of
reconnecting. I thought, ‘maybe in
heaven we’ll reunite’, but wished it would happen in this life. As far as I knew, he may have already died.
Then, in October of the 43rd year, my
phone rang. I didn’t recognize the
out-of-state number, so I didn’t answer.
I figured if it was important, they could leave a message and they
did. To my disbelief, the message was
from my old written-off friend, asking me to give him a call. He had also been searching for me and in his
internet travels he saw something that connected with my name. He had found my old work number and called
there only to find that I had retired. A
former workmate that answered his call gave him my contact number.
As I began to return my old friend’s call, I
rehearsed my apology, feeling that I needed to mend that fence
immediately. I was sure that he had been
in pain for 43-years over the way I treated him. To my surprise, as I awaited an opportunity
in our conversation to apologize, my friend never mentioned that episode. In fact, he referred to his visit all those
years ago in a positive way, never indicating it had been anything but a nice
visit many years ago. He also reflected
on our time together at prep school as roommates and how much it had meant to
him. Shocking me even more, he shared
with me that he had always told his parents that there were three things that
helped him more than anything in his life.
One of the three things was the year he spent with me as his
roommate. He said that I could look at a
wall and find something funny or interesting about it! He also said that the insecurity of his big
step after high school, was greatly lessened by getting to know me.
So a couple of months passed and I got a second call
from my old friend. He said that he and
his wife were driving halfway across the country to spend Christmas with their
daughter and they could come through my town on the way. He said he and his wife would arrive at their
motel near town late in the evening and suggested we have breakfast together at
an interstate exit restaurant the next morning.
I said yes, and I was really looking forward to seeing him again. Nevertheless, my guilt began building up
again. Even though he had not yet mentioned the probable cause for our
long-time separation in any of our recent communications, I just knew that it
would come up or that I would need to bring it up, apologize and try to get a
good start on our future relationship.
My wife was working and couldn’t make breakfast, so
I went alone to the restaurant to meet my old friend and his wife. It was like a blind date, not knowing if he
would recognize me or me him. As I
walked in the restaurant, I immediately spotted him and he spotted me. We embraced and he introduced me to his
wife. She and I also embraced. We got a table and sat down for breakfast.
My friend already had a hint that my walk with the
Lord had improved greatly over the past 43-years, as he discovered such in his
internet search for me. I immediately
realized that his walk and that of his wife was strong. After catching up on a few old memories, we
decided to move the conversation to the now and the future.
The three of us had a deep spiritual conversation,
with no reluctance to share our faith.
There was a very brief conversation about the present state of our
government, but we moved from that as fast as we could. Nothing was ever mentioned about that time
43-years ago when we separated.
I was so blessed that things turned out like they
did, but I didn’t have a feeling that I had gotten away with my mean-spirited
attitude of some 43-years ago. What I
did feel was a most wonderful unspoken forgiveness. I had to suspect that our breakup 43 years
ago troubled him, but he was happy to remove it from his mind and make me feel
like all was well. We made plans to keep
our new life together alive, and my wife and I have since traveled to visit he
and his wife. My old friend and I trusted
in God’s time in the healing of our relationship and we will continue in what
was and is our eternal friendship in the presence of our forgiving Lord.
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