The Postcard

The other day I was going through my mail. There were the usual bills and the junk mail. And a postcard. On the face of the postcard was the Hollywood sign on the side of the hill in Los Angeles. I turned the card over to see to whom the card was addressed. To me. And the sender... well, the sender was someone I had not seen in years, much less even thought about since we had last seen each other.

It came from someone who had been a very good friend of mine. But as it sometimes happens, people lose touch with one another. And over time, unless something happens to jar our memory, we simply forget about that person and move on with our lives. But Sam and his wife were there when their daughter and our daughter were very young. In the lean years, the tough years, we hung together as we tried to survive that part of our lives. I have to tell you, we had some very good times together. And then they moved and moved again, and after awhile, our lives just went in very different directions. And the rest you already know.

Anyway, I read the postcard.

"Dear Jack,

I got your address from a mutual friend and I immediately sat down and wrote you. I hope that life has treated you well. It has been a long time since we have seen each other, and I was thinking about you and me. I was thinking about the dreams we had and the things we wanted to accomplish. I was thinking about the many conversations that we had over a lot of bottles of wine.

Now that both of us are approaching the big 60, I figured this would be a good time to check in with you and see how things turned out for you. For the record, I have accomplished a lot of the things I have wanted to do. And some things just didn't work out. Ah, well?

I know this is sort of out the blue. But I would really enjoy hearing from you. Write me or you can call me at 429-266-1379. Sylvia passed away last year and it would really be nice to hear an old familier voice.

Sam"

My own life has admittedly been a little disappointing. Very few of the things I wanted to accomplish were actually realized. I considered that fact for a moment and I wasn't really sure that I wanted Sam to know that after all these years. And yet, maybe, I thought, Sam wasn't going to care one way or the other about how my life has played out. After all, we were friends, and friends... real friends, accept each other just they are, successes or not. And Sam was alone, and he needed me to be there for him now, just as he had been there for me so many times in the past.

I guess I really didn't have to think very long about what I needed to do. With no hesitation, I grabbed the postcard and picked up the phone and keyed in his phone number. After a minute or two, a voice on the other end,, that I immediately recognized as as Sam's, said, "Hello, this is Sam. How can I help you?"

"Hello, Sam. This is Jack. How are you doing, buddy?"