an old friend

in the midst of my gloomy disposition, i thought i should capture something truly special that happened in my life a few months ago. one day i woke up to my clock radio and there was a segment playing on npr. in my slightly groggy state, i listened to the discussion and then caught a name that i knew, who was identified as the speaker. i knew this name because it was an individual who was my best friend from elementary school.

i had moved away in about sixth grade and though we kept in some contact, the last time we had spoken was our freshman year in college. i had wondered what had happened to this individual over the years. online searches had not yielded many clues save his occupation, and given what it was, it made sense that any further information would be difficult to come by via a public search. it was also how i knew that the speaker was indeed my friend.

i learned from the npr that he had since changed jobs and so i thought i'd see if by some chance he was on linkedin. a quick entry of his name in the search tool showed that he was indeed a linkedin user. i sent off a quick note and wondered if i would get a response. about an hour later, i got a lovely note saying that he was really happy to hear from me and provided his phone number to contact him.

we spoke the following weekend and in a couple of hours did a high level catch up on 30 or so years of life history. since then a business trip provided me the opportunity to visit with him and his family, and it was a delightful time of reconnecting. what was really wonderful was to see how this friend from childhood has become a really great man. we pledged to remain in contact and so far have been doing pretty good at that.

oh, the one thing that i forgot to mention with respect to his first note back on linkedin was a sentiment he shared. he wrote, "you couldn't know this but i consider you my very first best friend." i feel the same way about him.