Say It Now

If I don’t recognize the number, I don’t answer. I figure if it’s legit, they’ll leave a message.

Yesterday I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. Oddly, my phone displayed part of a name. It didn’t ring a bell. I swept down to “ignore.”

A few hours later I noticed the double-loopy (is that supposed to look like a cassette tape?) voicemail notification icon on my phone.

The message was from an old tennis teammate of Mike’s, a guy he hadn’t spoken to in probably 25 years, hoping he had the right number, and if he did, please tell Mike to call because he had some news for him.

I called back. I told him my name, and he launched right into why he had called: another old teammate had died suddenly, just two days ago.

I let him finish, and then I said, “I’m very sorry to have to tell you, but Mike died of cancer seven years ago.”

The guy was shocked and clearly dismayed by hearing how long ago it was that Mike had passed away. He also didn’t realize right away that I was Mike’s widow: he must have thought I was just another relative. So when I explained that yes, I was Mike’s wife, er, widow, that shook him up even more. And I had to put him in the position of realizing he was not just a little late, but seven years late, in trying to reconnect with Mike.

I’ve reached the point in life where the news of someone my age or younger dying comes too often.

“Wait, who? Really? But…”

Like many others in their ’60s, that strange decade after middle age but before you’d want to admit or embrace being “old,” I move through my days presuming I’m still too young for all that. The era of a funeral a month that I went through when my parents were regularly losing their peer group, is long over. Mine isn’t supposed to start yet.

Younger people don’t call, they text. But they don’t realize how much they’ll miss a conversation with an old friend once they can’t have it anymore, and what a good feeling catching up by actually hearing each other’s voices can be. Maybe they have so much confidence in the eternity of the Internet that they’re certain they can always find those old videos of goofing off with their friends, embarrassing themselves, hearing each other’s voices.

But it won’t be the same as connecting to the living, breathing voice of a person with shared memories and history to tap into in an actual conversation.

I have a pen and pencil holder on my desk that my eldest brother gave me when I graduated law school. It’s a mug shaped like a woman in a grey suit and a blouse with a Peter Pan collar and a quintessentially ’80s scarf/bow at the neck, carrying a newspaper and a briefcase. I’ve always loved it, and it has traveled with me from job to job and office to office (when I had an office) throughout my, for lack of a better term, “eclectic” career.

I’m very glad that a few months ago, I texted (yes, texted) my brother a picture of it (for some reason he hates talking on the phone–maybe he doesn’t have unlimited minutes). I wanted to remind him what the thing looked like and to tell him I still have it, and that I love it and have carried it around with me from job to job ever since he gave it to me.

I need to tell my middle brother how much I appreciate his handyman help. He’s driven an hour from his home to help me put stuff together, fix broken things, and keep other things running as they should. He makes time for Angelic Daughter, who needs him as a male presence in her life, and wants their time together to be just the two of them–at the zoo, mini-golf, or just driving around, like she used to do with Mike.

That call from Mike’s past buddy is another reminder: say it now. Carpe diem, and all that. Anything I say to someone could be the last thing I say to them.

If you call, rather than text, the worst that can happen is you’ll get voicemail. But at least there’s a chance that an old friend, an estranged parent, a forgotten aunt, will hear your voice, and feel encouraged, or less alone, because you made the effort to connect.

Making a list of old friends to try to contact, I remain,

your lonely, procrastinating, trying to give more time and attention to Angelic Daughter, and to really listen to and connect with others,

Ridiculouswoman

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay