'Old' Friends

As I approach 80 years old, the term old friends has puzzled me. Most of my friends are old. And then, some friends are not just old, but we have spent a lot of life together. Introducing someone as an old friend has its pitfalls; you had better be sure you’ve known your friend for a long time. Wrinkles only prove age.

This all fell into place when I attended the memorial service of a friend I had made in the last ten years. Of course, he was old; he died of a massive heart attack at 82. He was only a friend to me, not an old friend. Speakers at the service were his old friends. One man recalled going back to when they were teenagers, when they drove his father’s car, unchaperoned, from Ohio to Colorado just after getting their driver’s licenses. The speaker didn’t go into detail about their misadventures, but the mourners could all imagine. Others spoke of his brilliant mind, his love of teaching history, his easy mentorship of colleagues, students, and even his grandsons. I knew nothing of these things about him. He was not an old friend.

But I learned about a man I cared for. I realized how lucky I was to have known him for a short time. I realized, too, how much of his life I had missed, and my regret that I didn’t investigate his past more as we talked at dinner parties or at the local coffee shop. I felt bereft at my loss of not knowing him better. It was really selfish of me.

Where does one start to investigate the individuals you have just met as you enter into the realm of old age? My first venture in introductions didn’t go well. Asking someone what they did, as in, “what did you do in your real life before retiring,” is the wrong approach. As I have learned, most people who have retired have left their occupations behind; they no longer identify as businessmen, scientists, or construction consultants. They develop a shorthand to get over their former occupation and move on to what they are doing now. I got with the program and learned to live in the present. But I still wanted to unlock the past of the people who were becoming important to me.

When one reaches the senior or elder stage in life’s continuum, everyone has an equal past that has been filled up. No one reaches 80 years old without past experiences that could ‘shock and awe’ the younger generation. These experiences are kept on note cards in the mind’s filing system, only to be drawn out when the right key term is pressed. Some note cards are filed under delete, but most can be retrieved.

The retrievable note cards are the ones I want to learn about. Finding ways to elicit them has been the challenge I have set for myself, both my own cards and those of others. Over the past few years, I have been a part of a memoir-writing group. Five writers dig into their mental filing system and put in key terms to retrieve stories about themselves. Stories of lost lovers, escaping apartheid South Africa, the necessity to act on climate change, a rural Connecticut village woman meeting head on the changes in the 20^th century, a family saga of reconciliation during turbulent years in modern Ireland, the adventures of an American in Tibet in the 1930s--- all fill in a part of the persons whom I am getting to know. Each week, another note card is retrieved, and I learn more.

After so many weeks and note cards, the writers become friends. Strangely, the definition of old friend has been redefined. The grey hair and wrinkles that each of us has define the old. But the sharing of our histories provides the longevity. I can now have new friends who are becoming older each week when they share another chapter of their stories.