Maybe, it’s COVID, or, Thanksgiving without family, or, facing my own mortality, but every day brings memories of people who were once part of my life. People who may only have said a short phrase to me, as well as people who had been with me for years.
My favorite phrase came from a woman I chatted with in the supermarket. We were talking about something important having crept up on us, when she said “After 40, the years are three months long.” I have shared it many times, always to appreciative audiences. Perhaps, time flies because adults have fewer events to look forward to.
We’re no longer excited about the first and last days of school, new shoes or graduation. We know that in due time, all things come to pass.
A dear friend lived near me in Detroit for 11 years before Colorado beckoned him. Hal’s special genius was knowing people. He often introduced men and women to each other who fell in love. When he reached eight happily married couples, he joined a “church” that exists to allow laypeople to perform weddings. By the time he moved west, he had officiated at 20 marriages. Hal and I visited one of those couples. When the men went out to fetch drinks, she told me how much her husband meant to her.
I didn’t see Hal for 40 years until I took a cross-country train trip and stopped in Denver.
Hal picked me up at my Airbnb. As soon as he saw me, he told me one of the corny, fifth-grade level jokes I have always loved. Being greeted in that way said, “I remember you.”
I became a Quaker because of the Vietnam War and because of the meditative aspects of the Religious Society of Friends. Chosen to participate in the next level of meetings, the Quarterly Meeting, my 24-year-old self was sent along with Kate, an energetic woman in her 80s. The three-hour drive from Detroit to Mt. Pleasant on a mild, sunny day was easily filled with conversation. Kate was the daughter of a banker and a second-generation suffragette. A graduate of Goucher College, she met the love of her life during one summer vacation. After graduation, to fill time while he was in medical school, she worked for Jane Addams at Hull House. As I listened to her settlement stories, I felt close to history.
At the time, there was a movement toward nonviolent self-defense techniques, and Kate, who surely was born in the forefront of all positive social action, took the course. I already knew the story of how she put what she learned into practice, but I asked her about it anyway. During a dark walk home after a late meeting, she was aware of being followed. She began singing loudly, while picking up the lids of trash cans and calling out, “Are you home?” When the man stepped up behind her, she spun around, put her chin against his chest, looked up at him and asked whether he was enjoying the sunshine. He ran away.
Our drive home was cloaked in fog. We were on one of the newer interstates, proceeding bumper to bumper with traffic at a crawl. “How are you,” she asked. I answered I was fine. She leaned over and took my pulse. “One of the benefits of having been a doctor’s wife,” she said. “You’re calm. You’ll be fine.”
Then there was Margaret, who I met during the second round of graduate school for both of us. She was a lawyer looking to leave the profession and I wanted to write a junior novel about King Arthur. I sat down next to her in the required research seminar, and we began to talk while we waited for the professor to show up. We regularly visited the Gardner and the MFA. Margaret, who never had children, became friends with my teenagers. When it was time for my daughter to fly to Spain for her junior year abroad, Margaret asked to take Emily to airport. I dropped her off at Margaret’s apartment, and they took public transportation to Logan, where they drank coffee and chatted until the flight was called.
Cancer claimed Margaret before she and Emily could meet again. Together, we attended Margaret’s memorial service at Old South Meeting House. Afterwards, her husband’s request that our friendships continue was met with hugs. We then walked to the Gardner to stand before Sargent’s painting of a Spanish gypsy, “El Jaleo.” The museum, the painting, Spain and the John Singer Sargent tied Margaret, Emily and me together as nothing else could.
At 73, I have finally learned what a great role admiration plays in friendship and in love.
Susan Wozniak writes a monthly column. She can be reached at columnists@gazettenet.com.