With you my love we're going to raid the future
With you my love we're going to stick up the past
We'll hold today to ransom 'til our quartz clock stop until yesterday.
- Vivian Stanshall and Steve Winwood
Arc of a Diver
As another college reunion approaches - and I've taken a vacation which affords me some time to drop off the grid and reflect - I'm perusing the Report to catch up with the lives of my classmates in the past five years, which is a pursuit that's alternatively gladdening and saddening, as I find that life is at middle age. I look forward to seeing some of them again when we gather in a month's time, but I'll also perceive some noticeable absences, including both folks who can't make it back to our alma mater that weekend and peers who've gone on to glory long before what we'll always believe should have been their time....
I consider it one of the great privileges of my life to have gone through such a rich, transformative and crucible period with such an incredible group of people. When we met, we were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, naïvely ambitious and convinced that we would change the world someday soon. Now, for the most part, we've become those future pillars of the community that we envisioned ourselves to be, albeit a little heavier, with a little less and/or greyer hair and decidedly less style than that to which we aspired in our youth. (Hey, it was the 80's after all....)
And though we attended one of the world's most elite universities, the proverbial golden ticket if there ever was one, the reality is that life has affected us just as much as everyone who hasn't been so lucky, either then or now. Yes, some of our classmates have founded companies, made millions (while donating a generous portion to our alma mater) and otherwise triumphed in business. Or they've become renowned professors and experts to whom others turn for wisdom and guidance. Or they've become among the most trailblazing and innovative professionals, especially doctors, lawyers and consultants. Or, in one case, a US Representative and, in another, a US Senator. Of course, many have lived less glamorous but nonetheless accomplished lives, about which we'll hear when we gather again in person at our reunion … or if we read the Class Report beforehand.
In fact, we've reached that stage in life where some of us have kids who have themselves graduated from college (including our alma mater) or are in it at present, while others' progeny are at tender ages that those of us with older children remember fondly and yet don't want to revisit. It's a point along our paths at which virtually all of us have garnered a realistic sense of our capacity to contribute to this world and yet age leads us to wonder about what lies ahead with a mix of tamped expectation and just a touch of concern. This is, in reality, a reasonable perspective: after all, statistics tell us that we likely have more of our journey in the rearview mirror than on the open road before us.
And while most everyone has experienced the vagaries of fate that inevitably attach themselves to adult life, on the whole, we've had good lives and, virtually to a person, can count ourselves among the fortunate few. Which is what makes the premature demises of an appreciable number of our peers so sad.…
For example, among my friends, Jacquie Cook died in a moped accident in France between our freshman and sophomore years; Roland Heacock, on his way to medical school after a graduation that was just a week or two away, was permanently injured in a car accident and passed away little more than a decade later never having had the chance to fulfill the promise that was so evidently his; and other friends - like Desiree and Craig and my track buddy John O'Brien (known as "Obie" to his friends) and the incredible and accomplished Bill Patterson, to name but a few - are no longer here to celebrate with us and to enrich our lives as they did during that glorious gauntlet of multi-faceted growth. Fortunate though they may have been in their youth, a long life was not one of their endowments, a reality for which we who survive are meaningfully poorer, especially their families (including the ones that some of them didn't live long enough to have).
Many assumed - including, I suspect, most of us - that because our lives were charmed in our youth, so, too, would be the rest of our journey. But for far too many of those we knew and loved, this was not to be.…
This, I have learned, is one of life's greatest lessons: no matter how gilded the path, into each and every life triumph and tragedy will enter, the primary differences between us reflecting the balance of these two that fate ensures none of us can ever anticipate.…
So I hope that Willy chooses to return to the site of our youthful hijinks so that we can reminisce about our shared affinity for Stevie Winwood, one of the many prized gifts from him that also include an improptu wardrobe consulting session before his first college date. And I hope that Lance will choose to come this time so that we can relive some of the many great times that we shared (the majority of which, of necessity, will have to be sanitized if family is near). It would be great to catch up with Rondo, a pleasure I've had too infrequently in the intervening years. Hopefully, my beloved track buddy Mark Henry and I can reminisce about our exploits (but not replicate them, as sprinting is not a good idea for either of us now). And I hope that I get to spend some quality time with Eric Steven, with whom I was cool but not that close during our youth but to whom social media has bound me, thankfully, in the past half-decade; and John Tormey, whom I couldn't pick out of a lineup but whose online persona is invariably mirth-inducing and often profound. And (now) Dr. Alan Jackson, with whom I shared my first Uno's pizza so long ago, and (now) Dr. Stephen Taylor, the first 18-year-old I ever met who didn't have a driver's license (because he was a New York City [read = subway] kid). And Curtis and Errol and Fred, whose fertile minds stretched mine beneficially so long ago. So, too, with Jamie and Bruce and Keith and the two Terrys - and Frank and/or Jon? - and many other brothers in time with whom I spent long hours envisioning our futures and thoroughly enjoying our then-present moments. And Susan and Paola and Sarah and Glenda and Jennifer and Erica and Eva and Julie and all of the other fierce classmates who convinced me a generation ago that the future was indeed female. And if I don't see them, I will wish them well telepathically as I so often do now, the memories of our shared developmental experiences and escapades ever-emblazoned upon my soul.
And yet another bit of fun: I'll get to introduce my wife to many of the legends about whom she's been regaled, since she and the kids and I were only able to make a single event at my previous reunion (though I did manage to keep my streak of attending all of them intact by doing so).
As I prepare to rejoin these incredible people, I am ever more thankful for the influences that they've had in my life, both large and small. I treasure who they used to be and am excited to learn more about who they've become. And I pray that whatever the future holds, each of us will find profound meaning in the moments that lie ahead of us, however many they will be. What I can say unequivocally now is that each of these experiences of the eternal now with which we're gifted will enhance the blessings that we've been in each other's lives in and remind us just how fortunate we've been to make our journeys together, both then and now.…
When we were young, we couldn't wait to grow up.
As we got older, how we wish time would slow down just a little.
- Anonymous
