Regrets upon saying good-bye to friend
Regrets. I suspect that we all have a few. Many are very personal, and some aren’t even our fault. But some are. They are often hardearned, either through stubbornness, laziness, avoidance, or maybe even a bit of passive-aggressive anger that we hold towards another person.
This past weekend I attended a celebration of life for a man that at one point in time was one of my closest friends. We’d been friends for more than thirty years, drawn together through our mutual love of the outdoors and the pursuit of Indigenous artifacts. We had walked hundreds of miles together and canoed many more. We shared laughter and joy, and my load always felt a little lighter when he was around.
A number of years ago he joined Myra and me on a canoe drip down the South Platte River. We stopped for lunch and sat on a fallen cottonwood tree on a gravel bar to partake of our noon repast. The sky was vibrant blue, and the water shimmered in the dazzling sunlight. High overhead, a pair of bald eagles soared, riding the thermals high into that bright blue. It was a moment of perfection.
Myra had been sitting quietly for several moments, when she lifted her head and announced, “You know Tom, when we retire, we should build a log cabin and live on the South Platte River. I can’t imagine anything more peaceful.” I agreed with the sentiment completely and our friend acknowledged the value of that dream.
Many years passed and I was in the process of changing professions/retiring from human services. Myra had a couple more years of school administration to complete before she could retire. Our lives were comfortable and were it not for our friend, probably nothing much would have changed.
He noticed a Cabela’s Trophy Properties flier that showed a log-sided home on the South Platte River and the image immediately reminded him of that conversation on that gravel bar many years before. He sent the link to my computer, and although I was intrigued, it still seemed like an impossible dream. Myra happened to walk by at that moment. Seeing the pictures on my computer, she said, “That’s where I want to live.”
Longer story shortened — we ended up purchasing our dream and for the past 16 years have reveled in the pastoral bliss of the South Platte River valley. Had it not been for our dear friend, we never would have known about the place, and we were/are eternally grateful.
Subsequent to our move, our Sterling friend was a welcome presence on our farm. We looked for artifacts in the river together, and he shot turkeys, deer and geese on the farm. When he and his wife were having difficulties, he spent many evenings at our home, as he processed through his loss and grief.
A talented man with the soul of an artist, he had purchased a lithic casting company and was making resin casts for many universities and museums, including the Smithsonian Institute. When he tired of the casting business, he sold it to us and gave Myra lessons. We continue the business today and it has been a great retirement pastime.
Somewhere through the years, however, our friend’s visits to the farm began diminishing. Although he had hunted deer on our place for nearly ten years, his hunting interests went in a different direction, and we rarely saw him.
Every now and then, I would bump into him in town, and we would promise each other that we’d get together soon. It never happened. And now, it’s too late, and I am sitting here sorting through my regrets and wishing I had been a better friend. I could have called him and invited him to dinner or to an arrowhead hunt, but as we all know, life gets busy, and people pass through our lives and then seem to move on.
I’ve entertained this notion that if our lives are “lines” in time, we will intersect with many folks during our tenure here on earth. The moments of intersection can be intense and highly rewarding, but straight lines that intersect ultimately aren’t going the same direction and fall farther and farther away from each other. Inevitable?
I think my metaphor lacks the impetus of human agency — maybe the intersecting lines of people in our life just seem to go in tangential ways because we neglect to nurture the relationships. I think, “what if I would have reached out and said, ‘hey man, we miss you. Come visit.’” Could that have changed the arc of our relationship? I suspect that it could have made a difference.
My friend was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig Disease) and died from complications of this viscous illness. He was only 57 years old. I wish we could have had a few more hunts together. Regrets leave a melancholy in my heart.
We all are living with correctable regrets. My encouragement to you (and believe me, I’m already practicing this behavior) is to spent a few moments and see if there are relationships that you assume will one day come around again, but presently are being neglected. And when these exist, attempt to reconnect.
Maybe it will work and maybe it won’t, but at least you won’t be sitting around on a cold, winddriven, snowy day in January wondering what might have been.