Lost and Found

I sat in the recliner of the trailer I made my home in college. I got a letter back from my friend Eric. The address reminded me he was in the Navy. I thought this was the reason we communicated so rarely at the time, but now I'm not so sure. He was married, had a daughter. When I wrote him I poured as much as I could in the letter, thinking it would cause him to be better at responding. I was holding onto the closeness we had in high school. He wouldn't write back to that letter.

One summer Shelly, my brother and I went to Virginia Beach, where Eric was stationed and spent a little time with him. It was strained. I don't remember much about it, other than the feeling of it not going well. I also saw Eric after he had been n a pretty significant car accident, while he lived in Westland. I visited him once. He hated how he looked, his face had been damaged in the accident, and hobbled on crutches. Outside of these two visits, I didn't really see him much during my college days.

I refused to see it, but we had drifted far apart.

The months before Shelly and I got married, our days were full of planning. She would pretend that I had input, the tell me how it needed to be and why. One of these conversations brought us to the topic of bridal party. Apparently the count is not three, because that is too small. It is also not seven, because that is too many. After my education on this, we talked about who. Eric was in my list.

There was one problem, I had no idea how to get a hold of him anymore. I tried the last phone number, it was dead. I tried his old number, his parent house. It wasn't their number anymore. I eventually got the number of his brother Jason. I got ahold of him, caught up a little but, explained I was getting married and then asked about Eric. He had gone back east. He and the mother of his daughter were separated or divorced. Eric didn't have a number. He was calling from different places in the country, but there was no way I could get a hold of him.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What could make a person live such a life they were unreachable? Was there a break between him and Jason? Was he so poor he couldn't keep a steady number? What was happening to him?

It would be years before I would find out. Shelly and I were married. A few years later I had a job at Blue Cross that brought us back to the east side of the state. The house we had in Kalamazoo made it so that we couldn't buy a house yet. The twins and Shelby had been born. We were living at the house on Beck Road. We had been there more than a year. This would be around five six years after we had been married.

I really wanted to find out what had happened to him. I used my breaks at work to try various google searches. When I was home, I was trying the different tools at my disposal to locate him. I was afraid what I might find, but I wanted to know. Fortunately for me, Eric had bought a small game company, which meant there was a website and Wikipedia just waiting to be found. Because of the commoness of his name, it took me a while, but I did find him.

As it turned out, when I found him, he was already planning a trip to Michigan, from his home near Philadelpia. I cold sit down with him. I could see the friend I had lost. Additionally, he had bought a game company that produced games we had played together. This felt like it was leading up to a cool conclusion.

Face to face we sat for the first time in many years. I was able to introduce him to three of my daughters and Shelly, who he already knew, but as my wife. I was able to tell him how much I wished he had been there to celebrate with us. He told me of his hard life. How after the divorce he kind of went off the rails. He had spent too long homeless and addicted. I couldn't really understand, but I ached for him. He also told of getting back on his feet, owning a successful game shop, purchasing the company. He told me about his new wife and how she grounded him. His story had become one of success, I wished I had been there to celebrate with him.

Today, Eric and I are friends on Facebook. It is strange, though, for me to think about him and the paths our lives have taken. There was a time when all we had was history, but we were in such different phases of our life, we could really relate. Now, we are both married men with children, but our histories are so different it is still like there is a gap between us.

I considered sending him a message directing him to this article, but I can't exactly put into words why I would do that. There is another part of me, perhaps the selfish, self centered part, that hopes he finds this article on his own.