There are two people whose disappearance truly saddened me over the years, and who reappeared in my life after decades. One was my best friend from high school, Caroline. Her friendship at that awkward stage of my life was really life changing. My parents were Catholic, uneducated and strict, whereas her parents were highly educated and members of the Unitarian faith which was quite liberal.
I really enjoyed visiting them, sometimes being there for dinners during which I was treated as an adult and my opinions were listened to, important issues of the day discussed. She was offbeat and artistic and I was much more conventional and insecure. We read serious literature and went to art movies together.
After high school, she went off to art school in Boston and I commuted to a Catholic Women’s College near my home. Before long, I found out that she had dropped out and had found a motorcycle riding PhD candidate boyfriend. I took the bus to visit her in Cambridge and she and Andre had gone on a motorcycle trip somewhere and didn’t show up the whole weekend. Apparently they had broken down. I wound up sleeping in a chair in the living room which was the only place available in what turned out to me a sort of hippie pad. I was really uncomfortable and left early. After that fiasco, I did visit her when she got her own apartment and the whole story of dropping out of school and meeting Andre was revealed. However, after that I didn’t hear from her again. For decades, as it turned out.
About twenty years ago, I was living in Oxnard with my husband and I get a letter from a mutual friend in Connecticut where we grew up that Caroline had gone back there for her mother’s memorial service.
I then found out that she was living in Ojai, a mere 15 miles away. She and Andre had moved to Canada, then to California years before. The friend told her that I also lived in California and we reconnected, our friendship taking up where it left off.
Did I as the universe for this reunion? Yes, I did. Her family’s influence extended to my eventually becoming a Unitarian and rejecting much of my religious baggage.
Shortly after we connected, her husband became seriously ill with kidney issues and he got a transplant. I was happy to be supportive and we met regularly. After he died, we continued to be in touch and visit art museums together and enjoy wonderful lunches in the area.
I never found out why she didn’t keep in touch all those years but that’s not important. Her daughter became an artist and Caroline worked for years in the health insurance business. Sadly, she died last summer but ever the unconventional one, she had a late in life romance that was really beautiful.
Whatever spirit I appealed to in the universe answered my prayer. It was a decades long, but interrupted friendship that resumed on the West Coast and for which I am grateful.
— Oxnard15
I really enjoyed visiting them, sometimes being there for dinners during which I was treated as an adult and my opinions were listened to, important issues of the day discussed. She was offbeat and artistic and I was much more conventional and insecure. We read serious literature and went to art movies together.
After high school, she went off to art school in Boston and I commuted to a Catholic Women’s College near my home. Before long, I found out that she had dropped out and had found a motorcycle riding PhD candidate boyfriend. I took the bus to visit her in Cambridge and she and Andre had gone on a motorcycle trip somewhere and didn’t show up the whole weekend. Apparently they had broken down. I wound up sleeping in a chair in the living room which was the only place available in what turned out to me a sort of hippie pad. I was really uncomfortable and left early. After that fiasco, I did visit her when she got her own apartment and the whole story of dropping out of school and meeting Andre was revealed. However, after that I didn’t hear from her again. For decades, as it turned out.
About twenty years ago, I was living in Oxnard with my husband and I get a letter from a mutual friend in Connecticut where we grew up that Caroline had gone back there for her mother’s memorial service.
I then found out that she was living in Ojai, a mere 15 miles away. She and Andre had moved to Canada, then to California years before. The friend told her that I also lived in California and we reconnected, our friendship taking up where it left off.
Did I as the universe for this reunion? Yes, I did. Her family’s influence extended to my eventually becoming a Unitarian and rejecting much of my religious baggage.
Shortly after we connected, her husband became seriously ill with kidney issues and he got a transplant. I was happy to be supportive and we met regularly. After he died, we continued to be in touch and visit art museums together and enjoy wonderful lunches in the area.
I never found out why she didn’t keep in touch all those years but that’s not important. Her daughter became an artist and Caroline worked for years in the health insurance business. Sadly, she died last summer but ever the unconventional one, she had a late in life romance that was really beautiful.
Whatever spirit I appealed to in the universe answered my prayer. It was a decades long, but interrupted friendship that resumed on the West Coast and for which I am grateful.
— Oxnard15
Wow. I had a friend named Caroline in high school also. I also went to art school in Boston (Mass. College of Art) and lived in Cambridge! So... I can relate... but then it all ends up on the West Coast! Very interesting writing! (Macoff, fellow Dipper)
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