On Loss & Reunion

In these last couple of years as I approach turning 50, I've had to deal with some loss. These losses are different from that experienced with the death of my father or father-in-law or grandparents. There was, of course, the loss of my friend Steve, when he died in March. While both my father and father-in-law both died too young (65 and 60 respectively), something was different about Steve's death at 57. Maybe it was that I saw him as being like myself. I'm sure this kind of thing will happen more and more as the years progress, until it's finally my time.

But death isn't the kind of loss I'm thinking about at the moment. I've had on my heart the loss--or severe chronic absence--of men I recently considered close friends: David, Jack and Noel. I know they're out there, but I neither see them nor hear from them. I don't know why. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's them. Maybe it's us and our inept struggle to make real contact with real friends in this world. Maybe it's just life.

At the same time these losses have been occurring, happy reunions take place. My 4 O'Clock Club and I have a wonderful reunion on the second Tuesday of every month. And after many years and miles, the White Water Band--all of us from the time I remember it best--is back in touch and enjoying one another's company again.

Here's another reunion that took place yesterday as a result, initially, of this blog. Back in April, I think it was, I received an email from a woman named Julia C. She and I had been at Mars Hill College together back in the late 1970s. Both of us were music major studying flute, so we spent a good bit of time together in the college concert band and in flute choir. By the time I was a junior and she a sophomore, she was first chair flute in the band and I second. So we sat side by side and played the pieces on the music stands before us and laughed a lot in between the playing. I left in the middle of my junior year and we lost touch, making contact only once in the last 30 years, back in late 1988 or early 1989 when she was working at the mall in Knoxville and I and my betrothed happpened to run into her there.

Anyway, back to my blog and her email. Julia, perhaps in a nostalgic mood, was apparently googling Dr. Bryant, the flute professor who taught both of us at Mars Hill College. Among the results Google returned was one of my blog entries, in which I'd mentioned MHC and Dr. Bryant. Julia knew that I was the writer of the blog, and after just a little investigation, she learned that I was at East Tennessee State University. What was really neat was that she's here too! Since 2006 she's been in one of the graduate programs here on campus. Neither of us knew the other was here, even though she often walks by the Honors House on her way to and from her work on campus.

Our actual reunion after the initial reconnection was a couple of months in coming, but yesterday we finally got together at the Oasis Coffeehouse. For two hours we sat and remembered Mars Hill College, Dr. Bryant, our life experiences since those days. I enjoyed talking with her as much as I always did. Thanks, Julia.

I don't know what it is with these reunions reaching back to the 1970s, but I'm glad they're taking place. (Remember that I also had a Class of 1977 reunion less than a year ago.) Renewing connections from those days is, so far, a heartwarming and rewarding experience, reminding me that I haven't gotten too far from my raising, which I think is a good thing. Something else that these reunions offer is hope that the losses I suffer now--at least those losses not finalized by death--are not beyond redemption. Some day. I just hope that, if such redemption looms in the future, it doesn't take 30 years for it to happen.