When Roger started laughing, I started too. We then spent the next few minutes killing ourselves on the phone, as we had all those many years ago. No words necessary, just beautiful and joyous laughter. What a great moment! This all came about because of last night, when Allen W and I had tripped down memory lane and Roger's name had come up. "What ever happened to Roger R?", I had asked Allen. "He lives here in Calgary," said A. What? Give me his coordinates. I am going to call him.
And this morning I did. That's when "Hi Roger, this is Nancy Griffith," was said. "Oh my G-d, when can we get together?" he asked, after we stopped laughing. "Why not today?" I replied. "You're on." So we met for lunch at a local watering hole near me. I arrived first and when I saw him walk in, after 46 years, my eyes watered with tears of joy. I know that sounds sentimental, but at very rare and infrequent times I can be. He looked great. He wore a beautiful pair of cream cotton slacks, a white T-shirt and a black cashmere jacket. Calgary or no Calgary, no jeans for dapper Roger. "Except for the grey hair," he lied, "you look exactly the same." And so began a beautiful two hours of laughing and crying, as we remembered so many fabulous and innocent times, re-living our glory days and nights in France driving around in Larry's two-gear-only Land Rover.
Sadly, Larry died at sixty, my cousin at 56. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too young. But here were Roger and I, still healthy and happy. It almost felt as if we shouldn't be so happy, our loved ones gone. But we had a ball. I introduced him to the servers and, of course, the manager compted half our meal, delighted as he was to meet such an old friend of mine and hear ribald stories of wonderful times back-in-the-day.
We parted and believe me, we will be getting together regularly.
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| Roger and I. Forty-six years melted away in seconds. |
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