THE GIRLS I LEFT BEHIND [Sat, 7-29-23]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--THE GIRLS I LEFT BEHIND [Sat, 7-29-23]

 

Sharon, Don’s widow, called me this week. She and Bob are setting up a convenient little reunion for those in our high school class who are within driving distance of Oakland City. Early afternoon, so that everyone can get home before dark. No meal, so no work or cost. What a nice idea for old people…

…except Helen and I can’t go, even though everybody in our class thinks of her as one of our own, since she has been to so many of my class reunions and events for 60 years.

Not many of us within driving distance anymore. Jim, Kenny, Bob, the other Bob, maybe Jack, Marietta, Sandra, the other Jack, two or three I’m not sure about where they live now. So many people go off to California or Arizona to live near their children.

It would not be a hard drive for us. 90 miles on a nice new interstate. But because the road is new, and there are no towns on the way, there are no rest rooms. 90 miles will require at least one stop for me. and one for Helen. And our bladders are never on the same schedule, so that means two stops, where there are none. And the matter of sitting up straight for 90 miles…and then on folding chairs for a couple of hours… well, I’m sure you understand why I had to tell Sharon “No,” even though I was once in love with her.

It was our sophomore year, I think. Before she and Don were dating. For a month. I doubt that she knew I was in love with her, since I always tried to avoid the girls I was interested in. Or maybe my temporary distance was how they knew I cared about them, those many, many girls.

I was in love with approximately 200 girls in our high school years. one month each, or maybe two for Carolyn. Well, actually I was in love with Carolyn ever since I saw her wearing Howdy Doody earmuffs when we were in 5^th grade. It doesn’t get hotter than that. So she doesn’t count in the one per month lineup. But, she went to Purdue, so it never would have worked out.

Even though I had to tell Sharon I couldn’t come to the reunion, we had a nice, long conversation. Her daughter was diagnosed with cancer when she was two, and Sharon was a great help to us when our grandson got that same diagnosis at 15 months. We talked about that, and classmates dead and lost, and our school days in general. She said something that touched me. “You were always a perfect gentleman.”

I guess that should not have surprised me. I tried to treat people as a gentleman would. But it meant more to me precisely because Sharon and I never dated. I’m sure that Phyllis and Nancy, girls I actually did date, would have said the same, although they might have said it with a bit of a disgusted sneer, because I was always afraid of girls. I didn’t know how to deal with them, what they wanted from a boyfriend. So I was careful not to transgress any boundaries, while at the same time trying to be attentive. I wanted to be that way with everyone, treating them with respect. To know that a girl who was a classmate still thinks of me that way meant that I was successful in treating my friends the way I wanted to be treated.

When we are old, it’s satisfying to know that our friends appreciated the way we were when we were young together.

John Robert McFarland