Memories

We had a high school reunion last summer. I was graduated in 1962 from Maine Township High School East in Park Ridge, Illinois. It was our 45th reunion. I didn't go. The reunion was held in Las Vegas this past summer. If you've been to Vegas in the summer you know why I didn't go.

I would have loved to see some of the people with whom I was close in school, however those people I hear from almost every day. Email is, without a doubt, the greatest invention. It only takes a moment to communicate with a loved one or a friend. It somehow is easier than a phone call, although phone calls are a wonderful way to stay in touch. It is definitely easier than sitting down and writing a letter.

The pity is that we won't have anything to save because we won't have letters and notes. We all know that it is impossible to keep all our emails because our email programs generally limit us to the amount of space we have and so we keep cleaning out our inboxes.

In any event, because of this reunion, I heard from someone from my past. I knew her name, but could not picture her face. Therefore, I truly didn't remember her. We have been communicating, a joke here or there, an occasional "how are you". Nothing deep, because I didn't remember her. Without a past, there wasn't a now or a future. That is, until tonight.

Tonight she finally sent me a couple of pictures of her with her beau and one of her beautiful daughter and son-in-law. The moment I opened the 1st picture, the memories came like a torrent. I really remembered her. How wonderful that was. It took me back a very long time to a time when we were truly innocent, even though we didn't want to be.

It was the age when we were experiencing what it would be like to be a woman, even though we were still children. I remembered our Saturday afternoons at the Pickwick Theater in Park Ridge, Illinois. I remembered that we were too young to drive ourselves, so our mothers would drive us and then pick us up. She reminded me that we would go up and down the aisles of the theater looking for the cute boys!

When I think of those days, I can't help but smile. The hours we spent on the phone. Talking about boys, of course. We spent almost all of our time together and yet somewhere along the way, we lost one another. I don't know how that happens. How do we let go of people who are so important to us.

I don't remember how we met...we didn't go to the same grammar school. We didn't live in the same neighborhood. We didn't live far away from one another, just not around the corner. Her name is Darlene and how I wish we hadn't waited almost 50 years to find one another again.

It is true, a picture is WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS! Before I saw her picture tonight, she was just a name from the past...not a memory. Now she is a memory...a wonderful memory. I hope I never lose her again.

Remembering again,

Neelie