Letters from the older brothers I never had comprised a handful of the 18 letters. Each of these guys, except for one, were friends from college days. We didn't date, we were just great friends. We had lunch on campus, we bantered about Theology, we talked about Life. And if I do say so myself, I have some very great Guy Friends. It just seems to have so happened that we didn't end up falling in love with each other and getting married like, perhaps, it should have happened. Sometimes you just have a gut instinct that a friendship is all this thing ever could be ... without me having to snuff you out with my pillow in the middle of the night if we had married. I'm kidding about the murder part, obviously, but quite serious about the aggravation level that sometimes can be generated between otherwise good and decent people.
One of the letters is a general rambling about nothing much - it was someone that was part of a group of us that were friends. To be candid, he never quite grew out of the annoying phase of adolescent males. This was before the trend of 27 year-olds living in their parents' basements playing video games. I give him credit that he actually came to college and gave that a shot. Who knows where he is now. We had a mutual friend that I cared for very much and still think of him as a mentor and an inspiration. Let's call him Guy. About 15 years ago, I happened to be in the city where Guy was living at the time and we got together for a visit and heart-to-heart about all things that mattered to us. Guy told me he spent some time with the previously-referenced letter writer who proceeded to purposefully capsize him in their water craft with the intention of drowning him. He said to Guy, "I was jealous of you," as more of an explanation than an apology - although I can't imagine what the HELL you would say to someone you just tried to KILL! Frankly, I have been surprised in the last decade of how many depraved people I have met along Life's Path.
It reminds me of that great saying: "Do not walk behind me, I might not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, I might not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just leave me the hell alone." There are some people I don't even want to be Facebook "friends" with, he had moved himself into that zone.
Then there are the friends you want to keep forever. They are just plain golden - I have letters from two of those type of men. Except in one case, we tag up on social media occasionally and talk about Theology, the good old days, what we are living through at the time, etc. He married a nice wife, is raising some nice kids, and making a positive contribution to society. I like him because we relate on a par - we always have been able to do that - and he doesn't require any fixing, or toleration. It's just a really low-maintenance, long time friendship, where if we don't talk for years, we can pick up exactly where we left off. There's really nothing messy or bad about it.
In the other case, there is a sadness when I think about my other guy friend, let's call him Barnabas. We were not college friends. We were youth ministry colleagues at my first job and had forged a great friendship. One of the hallmarks of these uncomplicated, brother-like relationships is the guys call me by my last name, instead of my first name. It makes me feel like I made the baseball team or something. I feel included and happy. Except in this case, when he got married it changed. Like, I never got a Thank You note for traveling to his wedding, or giving a gift. And when I sent them a Christmas card a few months later it was returned to sender in a handwriting that was not his. I can only surmise that she did not want to be my friend, and felt more comfortable just cutting me out of the picture. If that is true, it kind of says that she does not trust him, which, as any mature adult knows, is the only bedrock upon which you can build a lasting relationship. Once you begin the mistrust thing, your mind plays tricks on you, suspicions grow, and you destroy any shot at true and lasting happiness.
I guess what I miss the most about being involuntarily cut out of Barnabas' life without cause is: I may never get to thank him for the profound impact he had on my development as a youth minister. He gave me a 1-page sheet of notes he took somewhere and they were so good, so useful that I actually photocopied them and gave them out to other adults that I was training, decades later. His tenacity, his frankness made the teens trust him. He was a good person with high moral standards and even though he was too humble to realize it, he was an absolute Beacon of Hope for people. I always knew where we stood and I know that friendships that are that clear and true are rare for most people. Like the last time he helped me move my apartment -he said, "Arabik. This is the LAST time we are moving your crap anywhere! No more new apartments!" (I moved 6 times in 4 years.) It turns out, it wasn't my last move, I left Arizona, but not before he left first. That was a hard day watching one of your best friends drive off into the horizon. Reading the letter from him will always make me remember the retreats we gave, the trips we took our parish teens on, and the like. I don't remember him going bowling with us, though. Somehow that would have taken the veneer off his coolness. And he was definitely the coolest.
The third guy letter was from, let's call him Patrick. He packed his letter with holy cards of saints. Ten to be exact, which included: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Gemma Galgani, and the Blessed Mother. His letter was a simple catch-up on how he was pursuing his dream of religious life with a new Franciscan order that was being started, and his plan to teach high school... which I don't think he actually ended up doing. He had been for some part of his life a lost soul, and the mercy of God found him and just changed his life. He was exceedingly joyful for about 99.7% of the times that I saw him on campus. He walked with such a spring in his step, that he at times appeared to be on a pogo stick. The last thing he left me with in his letter was how much he loved me because "God's love & mercy toward me is so astonishing, I often dissolve into one big tear drop of gratitude." It would be my wish that every person could have a friend like this.... an absolute treasure.
At times upon reflection, one can be struck with the sense of gratitude for the characters in our lives. It is a play, at times a Divine Comedy, with many different actors holding their roles as they interact with and influence us. The last two letters I want to comment upon were friend women that were much my senior, and in fact have both gone on to their eternal reward at this point.
I think of the University I attended as one big melting pot of kids from a variety of states and countries but all seemed to have a common zeal as people of faith. It may not have been equal, but it was an important component for arguably 90% of the campus population. We were not perfect, but we wanted at least to be good. And I don't know how it is that my horizons expanded beyond the University on the hill to the community surrounding it, but somehow it did. Back in the day before computers, there was this archaic thing called the typewriter. And all papers submitted to professors were executed on such a machine. However, typewriters had no spell check, and no grammar-check bluelines under phrases that needed a re-do. The spell and grammar checker were one and the same: ME, the typist. I typed papers for countless University scholars, as we were, in the six years I was there. People trusted me to keep their secrets on their psychology autobiographies, edit their documents, and then educate them later on what got changed and why. I was a student typist and an English teacher all rolled into one.
Then one day a senior citizen from the city called up to the campus looking for a student to type "something" for her. And my name was provided as the go-to. So she drove up to see me with her manuscript in hand and I had my assignment: to type her memoirs. Her handwriting can only fairly be described as: Exquisite. It was cursive at its absolute finest, as her letter now in my hand also attests. In this letter she shares her excitement of how well the memoirs were received, and of an upcoming fancy dinner party she was preparing to attend with her husband. She seemed to have quite a social life that involved lots of special desserts. Her letter had a warmth and affection to it that makes me wish I had been able to give her more time. She appreciated what I was able to do for her, but the typing project had also opened up her heart to make a new friend. She shared that she had never gone up the hill to the University before, having lunch with me there was her first time, and she was received with both attention and graciousness by my fellow students. Mrs. B, you taught me to be open to the new person, to make new friendships possible by opening the doors to "outsiders," and I hope to extend myself more to people in life. Thank you for being part of the process of me maturing in friendships.
My last senior citizen letter was from a generous woman who opened her home to four of us young women (three from the University) for a summer of fellowship and ministry near Boston. Let's call her "Faith." Faith was a nurse at a Hospital in a major city. She wore her nursing whites from shoulder to toe every day at work, and pulled her long silver hair up into a tight bun on her head. She must have been an impeccable, flawless nurse. But she also liked a good laugh, and good food, just like we her younger boarders did. At that stage in our lives, two out of the four of us were obsessed with the idea of finding Mr. Right, and getting married. I asked Faith once if she ever considered getting married. She seemed to be looking through the sky to another world as she answered: "Yes. But he went to the war and did not come back." My heart hurt for her in that regard.
With my friend Grace, I read her letter and pondered how much we have in common, despite the decades of age between us. We are both people of faith; we love poetry and prayer groups; and we love the ocean. I wrote a poem in her honor on behalf of we, her 4 boarders for the summer. It was about The Lady by the Sea - and she told me often how it moved her to tears. But it was she who took our faith and gave it the nautical analogy: Abba Father is the Navigator of Life; Jesus is the Helmsman of my soul; the Holy Spirit is the Power of the Wind in my sails. How beautiful.
The memories I have of that summer by the sea are many. Some of them are great memories, fun memories, and others are things that I could have done differently, better. But it is okay. As Faith pointed out, it was a time of growing and maturing for all of us. Really, is that not the work-of-a-lifetime: growing and maturing? Can we ever in this life say, "now I am complete, now I am done." And yet for Faith, her race is run and she is crowned with the grace that was her due for being who she was without hesitation. My life is richer for having been her friend. And now my job is to be that kind of person for the young people in my life.
To all my friends who wrote me those letters back then and the letters you send me now - thank you for your friendship, your candor, your faith, your sincerity. Thank you for being "givers" in life - you are the blessings that walk silently beside me as I travel my road, and I am more than grateful for you.
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