The Healing Journey

October 29, 2024

“Times have changed, all the good times that we had are gone now. Passed this way, only memories will remain, tomorrow.”
— Noel Paul Stookey

It had been at least 50 years since Mark had seen his three classmates from their Catholic Boys High School, yet he remembered most of the notorious stories of their time together that the others had long forgotten. The time their political science teacher threw the eraser and hit one of them in the head, the time they met for drinks in New York City and had one too many, the time they ran cross country and brought home victory for the school. The time two of their friends got expelled for bringing a Playboy magazine into the school library. (No one ever did that again.)

Truth be told if you put them in a lineup and asked strangers to compare them with their high school pictures, no one would have been able to complete the task with perfect accuracy. Times had changed … and they had changed too.

Well into their Zoom call, Mark finally mentioned that his wife and mother of his four children had died a year before from cancer … and the reminiscences came to a stop. None of them had known her, but even with his few words of explanation, it was clear that he was still in pain. He wanted to talk about it … but he didn’t want to talk about it. Nevertheless, they encouraged him because they knew he needed to talk, and for the rest of their afternoon together, they listened and shared their own stories of grief.

Mark wasn’t sure what would happen with an online reunion after five decades, but he was glad he had done it. Yes, times had changed, but he realized he could still count on them even though they were older … and unrecognizable.

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