Haiku to My Long-lost Friends

At the beginning of the year,  a friend was tagged on facebook. I took a peek at the pic, being curious. To my surprise, I was in that picture, too! There I was, my 11-year-old self, looking into the camera and smiling away with my 5th grade classmates. We went to St. Francis de Sales School,the only  Catholic school in town. It was a small school--one class for each grade.  I had to comment and so did many others. The avalanche of comments continued, becoming a chat, we went onto another picture and then another. We chatted about our memories and what happened to us during the past 40 years and about how nice it felt to reunite. A few of us agreed it was the most fun on facebook--ever! We share so much. It's sort of like siblings sharing the experiences of the family. We're the only ones with those memories and stories of attending St. Francis in that class during those years--no one else fully understands what we lived. The children in this picture I saw almost every day from 1st grade through 6th. We grew up together.

On facebook this morning I saw some posts from a couple of my reunited classmates, and I was reminded of how important they were to me in my childhood.  I started thinking of all the other important people at various times in my life. I wonder about them, those who have not been in my present life for so long, but played an important part. How are the girls I use to eat lunch with in junior high, the ones who helped me adjust to the strange, busy land of the public junior high school-- who ate and laughed with me, and who I looked forward to seeing every day? How are the young ladies who moved with me so very far away so we could teach-- who went to my college, but I didn't get to know until we shared the experience of living far away from home, brand new teachers in an unfamiliar place, enjoying the first two years of freedom from studying and having no parents to answer to? What happened to the people I taught with at that awful school out east--the ones who encouraged me when it was so obvious I was targeted as the teacher to be picked on by the school's upper echelon? What about the women I taught with for five years at that Catholic School during my first marriage--who were my only friends during a lonely time in my life? Where are my friends from the time after my divorce, some who taught with me in the huge middle school, and introduced me to the comfort of friends sitting at a bar while listening to blues music, who taught me to love sushi, and reminded me how to laugh til I cry--the ones who helped me find "me," after having lost myself by living solely to make some man happy?  I'd like to know.

And so to my lost friends,  who are somewhere in this world--hopefully happy-- here is your haiku. Perhaps one day we will serendipitously meet up. These days you may just be a couple of mouse clicks away. 

You made a dif'rence

And you're thought of with fondness.

I called you "my friends."