TWENTY YEARS OF SILENCE -- BROKEN

I have to start this with a true story.  Hey, hey, Heee, all my stories are true :-)

I was leaving the Theology College Seminary of the La Salette Missionaries to continue my Theological studies in Rome, Italy.  It was a rather happy day toward the end of September.  We were leaving to catch the ocean liner that was to be our hotel for two weeks as we crossed the ocean.  It was the Atlantic Ocean, as I remember it.  One of the students with whom I was rather close, chose to make a rather serious statement.  "You know," he said, "we are laughing and smiling for the moment, but it is very possible that we will never see one another again.  This despite the fact that we are both in our early twenty's."  I smiled, we shook hands, embraced in brotherly fashion, said our goodbye's and separated.  Our paths criss-crossed a couple of times.  He has gone to his heavenly reward, I'm still here, and we never set eyes upon one another since that fateful day in September in the early 60's.

Thirty or more years ago a professional colleague and I grew close to one another.  It was during my first managerial secular job.  We worked and played well together for some ten years.  I moved on, he moved on.  We talked over electronic media.  Ever more and more time passed between contacts.  Then, it became evident that there was going to be a long silence.  Suddenly, out of the laptop monitor the words jumped out and hit me between the eyes.  "X" told me that he needs your help.  He left me his telephone number for you..."  OK.  Now I know that he's not dead.  After turning some thoughts over in my head, I decided that caring loyalty was the better part of valor, and of course, the true Christian path to take.  So I called.  It was great.  I think that the greatest help he got, as it turned out was the contact itself.  I want to  help my friend, but in the situation that he described, I'm afraid that I am incapable of much more than moral support.  But now we are sure of our comfort in one another's presence.  In the end, isn't that what life is all about?  I think it is.

I hope that it will happen to me at least a couple more times.  I also hope that it will happen to those of you who may need to have the experience.