Reunited.

I had everything when I was a kid. My entire life was set, with nothing to worry about. Our neighbors to the North had a little girl I was going to marry when I grew up, which I shared with any and everyone I'd encounter. The neighbors on the South side of the house had two little Italian boys, brothers I was sure I’d be friends with for life. I was about five or six and the oldest of the group, and I knew I'd always be a leader. I'd come up with games to play, and sometimes wow them with made-up science experiments from cartoons I saw. As far as I knew, nothing was ever going to change. After a few years my “fiancée” befriended a girl who lived on the other side of her house, and made fun of me whenever they were together. She once told me that it was OK, because she only did it when the other girl was around. When it was just us, we were still friends. Eventually, the other girl was always around but, by then, the wedding was already off in my mind.

I remember an old fence with chipped white paint that ran along my driveway. There was one loose panel and while it wasn't that much farther to walk around the fence, it was more fun to go through this secret passage to hang out with the brothers next door. We'd get into all kinds of mischief, and I remember literally “busting caps” with them. I had a roll from a cap gun my mom had confiscated because it looked too real and she didn't approve of violent toys. But we figured out that you could hit the black gunpowder spots on the red roll of tape with anything from a rock to a hammer and still make noise. Their parents and their uncles would often have great barbecues in the backyard, and I remember the year they introduced me to snaps, those little white paper things that exploded when thrown against a hard surface.

Soon enough, my friends moved out of state. I made other friends in the neighborhood, and by that point I had also started making friends in elementary school. I was always excited when they'd come to town for a visit, but ultimately only saw them two or three times after they left. As the years went by, other friends I'd made would also leave. One girl would go to another school. Another friend would leave the neighborhood. At one point I was the one who left when my parents sent me to a private school. “Friends will always come and go, but your family is always there for you.” were words of wisdom my parents offered in comfort, sharing their own life experience. There are as many ways that people can leave your lives as enter them, and once gone it seems rare to see them again.

My old friends' uncle still lives in the house next door, now married with kids of his own. His children love to “help” my mom in the garden and she likes having surrogate “grandchildren” around. Earlier this week, we received the sad news that his mother, well known and loved in the community, had passed away. Last night I took my parents to her wake. As we walked along the long line of family, offering condolences to each of them, my mom asked about my first friends. One of the relatives pointed one of them out, and when we turned he stood enthusiastically and greeted me by name. The younger brother, he was maybe four the last time I'd seen him and I have no idea how he recognized or remembered me. I never would have recognized him. He introduced us to his wife and pointed out his older brother a few rows back, who was sitting with HIS wife and their infant. Later on my mom would mention that it was his youngest child, and there were two others who had stayed with a sitter that night.

It was surreal seeing two grown men in their late 20s now married and starting families of their own. I'd swear it was only yesterday I'd squeeze through the fence and the three of us would run around causing mischief. I wish I'd had more to say than “I'm sorry” or “It's good to see you” or “It's been a long time”, but after more than twenty years I was at a loss. I'm not prepared to see people again after so long. I'm so used to moving being permanent, that people eventually go away from me forever and I never see them again. I accepted it. Life will eventually prove such a childish notion wrong, that anything is possible. It's an important component of faith as well, the belief that after a loved one has passed away, we may yet be reunited in heaven. It's a comforting thought. You never know for sure in this life who you'll run into again, and the next life is even less certain.