Always a regret Feb. 5, 2025
I found the old email in my files and sent a message even
though I knew the man who owned it died more than a decade ago.
It was more than a shock that I got a message back, not from
him, of course (that being too much of a chore even for the internet), but from
his second wife (second exwife I should say) who has retained it and his
facebook page all this time.
He was one of my childhood buddies, who I had attended elementary
school with, gone to scout camp with, and with whom I had worked in the theater
as an usher, teaching him how to pick up girls.
His mother hated me, and eventually threw me out of their
house when she came back from work early to find I had gotten him drunk.
In scouts, we had done weekend camping trips together where
I also taught him all the wrong things, drinking and such.
We attended different high schools but he often came over to
my house to hang out (drinking and if we could find girls other things).
I lost touch with him after I went into the army, later
learning he had enlisted as well, and somehow had managed to avoid going to
Vietnam.
I found him on Facebook around 2010, living not far from
where my daughter lived, prompting me to promise to come out to see him which I
never managed to do, something I still regret.
His second ex-wife said she regretted divorcing him, and continues
to mourn him as if she neve did.
She said she buried him not far from where he lived, and so
I made another promise to visit his grave, one I intend to keep.
All this comes at a time when others from our elementary
graduating class are making plans for another reunion. No one could find him
for the previous one so he never got invited. I got invited, even paid to go,
but last minute work forced me to skip it (another regret). I guess this time I
won’t let work stop me from going, just to make sure that I see the faces of
people I’ve not seen in decades, to say that I saw them before we all end up
where he has.
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