I’m having lunch with a friend and ask her about a man we both know. “What do you hear from Jay?” She answers matter-of-factly. “Oh, he died of a heart attack several years ago.”
I can hardly breathe. Died? That can’t be possible. True, he and I had not been in contact recently, but I always assumed we’d reconnect somehow.
Jay was a Christian minister and I a Unitarian. But instead of disagreeing, we used our differences as a jumping-off place to explore the big questions—in some of the most nourishing conversations I’ve ever had.
Then he transferred to another church in another state and we lost touch. “Lost touch.” The phrase sounds so casual—as if it happened by accident. But we let it happen.
Assuming that somewhere down the road our paths would cross again. Because that’s the way it happens in books and movies: All the loose ends get tied up. Foolishly, I thought life would be the same.
Now, it seems as if life is unraveling as I go—and that this might be the larger reality, the deeper truth. When everything is said and done, we say, as if that were possible. It’s not. So, while there’s time, I must say and do the things that matter. Must stay in touch.