Monday, April 2, 2012

Wonderful Moments

Standing on the deck grilling steaks and listening to Sheryl Crow I can't help but think how blessed I am. Sure there are things I wish were better or different ... who doesn't? ... but this moment in time is pretty damn good. And that's all we really have anyway ... this moment. Hopefully the next one comes ... and the one after that ... but you never really know.

At this second though all is blissfully good. The television is blaring at ten decimals inside as the Disney Channel has conquered three little girls with what passes for acting these days. Sarah is doing the fourteenth load of laundry of the day. The house is mostly clean if you don't count Laurel's room which looks like Beirut.

And I'm outside on the deck, basking in the sunshine, wearing a pair of Sarah's running shorts because I forgot to bring any, sniffing the steaks and humming along with Sheryl Crow.

I'm gonna soak up, gonna tell everyone to lighten up.

The cell phone buzzes and I see I've missed a call.

Hitting voice mail, I hear the voice of Ted Hardgrove. Ted is a retired Director with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who I first met in 1998 when Ben Barnes, Mary Ann Beil and I drove to Charleston, South Carolina. Ted was in a conference there and had agreed to meet with us. A year later the Foundation gave Union Mission $613,000 to help start the J. C. Lewis Health Center and the Brassler Dental Clinic. The trip had been worth the price of the gas.

After that, Ted orchestrated my appointment as a member of the Foundation's National Advisory Board which takes me throughout the United States visiting and learning from the best of the best. I'm still a member of the Board. Ted is retired in Princeton, New Jersey a couple of miles from his old office.

It's been a couple of years since we've talked and at seventy-five his voice is that of man much younger.

"Micheal my friend, I am calling with Congratulations. We cannot wait to meet Sarah! It has been too long since we have talked. Call me."

So I did.

There is something about old friends. They stay in touch even though there are long gaps in the episodes of communication. We talk for a long time and it's as no time had passed at all. It may as well have been yesterday since we were together.

I think it's that way with friends who really love each other.

Friends who disappear ... in spite of whatever reason ... they were friends for different reasons ... not really friends ... just meeting mutual needs or taking mutual advantage of one another at the same time. Listening to Ted's warmth and obvious affection reminds me of this. Images of faces of those I once thought to be dear friends flash across my mind.

I tell them Goodbye.

They are soon replaced by the images of those I know love me. I tell myself that it's my turn to call them.

"Have you talked to Ben?" Ted asks as though he's reading my mind.

"Not too long ago," I answer.

"Call him now," Ted commands, "tell him I said Hi."

So I did.

"Micheal my son," the ninety-four year old Ben exclaims into the phone. "Congratulations are in order."

I cry as I flip the steaks over.

These are wonderful moments.

And I am blessed to understand them as they happen.