Front Porch: Looking for our long lost friends

One of the best things that has come out of this past year’s coronavirus sequestering has been friends. Long-lost friends.

While many of us have been busier than ever, trying to balance at-home work with at-home educating of children and all the other challenges the pandemic has brought to our doorsteps, others of us have had more time on our hands than we expected and nowhere (safe) to go to enjoy it or simply burn up our cooped-up energy.

So, as we’ve been spending way too much time watching TV, Googling, texting and engaging in all the rest that social media has to offer, I know that a good number of us have spent time searching online for friends or relatives we’ve lost touch with. And what a delight that has turned out to be.

An old college roommate found me. In my last two years at the University of Florida in the mid-1960s, Karen, Carolyn and I shared an apartment off campus. There was always a fourth roomie, too, but there was a fair bit of turnover in that spot.

I was a year ahead of Carolyn, so when I graduated and began my marriage and career outside of Florida, she remained for another year, and upon graduating, began her career as an educator. We wrote letters and exchanged holiday cards, but that slowed and we eventually lost contact.

And, lo and behold, up she popped again. Because I write for a newspaper, I guess I was easy to find. And I’m so happy I was. We’ve been exchanging emails and photos and catching up on a lifetime of lived experiences.

She taught in Georgia for much of her career and was involved in Civil Rights activities, having worked with some of America’s Civil Rights heroes. She married a bit later in life, and – here’s the big surprise – has been living for the past 25 years or so on Vancouver Island.

We’re practically neighbors! When the border opens again for just plain visiting – actually face to face – we will do just that. What a lovely thing to look forward to.

Back in high school, I had two best friends. I’m still in touch with Connie, but Barbara seemingly fell off the face of the earth. After high school, she went to Florida State University. We were in constant touch and also saw each other in the summer, when we were both back home in Miami. Money was very tight in her single-parent family, so she enlisted in the Navy while in college, and had the remainder of her bachelor’s degree in nursing paid for, in exchange for her serving a set number of years in the military.

Communications, in the form of letters and phone calls, continued for several years, but they, too, began to be spaced farther apart. There were no longer reunions in Miami. I was in Spokane, and she was stationed in Okinawa. Last I heard, she had married and had two little children.

And that was it.

From time to time, I tried to find her through the limited resources of the time – high school reunion committees, mutual friends. She had vanished. But, eventually, along came Google and Facebook. I tried, using both her maiden name and her much more common married name. Not even a clue. I’d try again every couple of years, with the same result.

And then, during this past year wiling away the time quietly, I remembered that she had a younger sister. So, I took a shot, and there, on Facebook, I found the person who I thought might be baby sister. There were a few people with her name, but only one who graduated from high school in Miami.

I sent a private message via Facebook, and then, faster than a speeding bullet, got a reply that began with “Of course, I remember you …” and that she would send my message on to her big sister. She told me that Barbara, the brilliant Barbara, who was a bridesmaid in my wedding and who was so intelligent that she skipped two years of elementary school and took pretty much only honors classes in high school, is a nurse in Phoenix.

I got a very brief note from Barbara several weeks later, when things were spiking with COVID-19 case admissions, explaining that she works in a hospital ER and will get back to me when she can catch her breath.

It was many months before I heard from her, and she summed up the last 40 years in a few short sentences, There were a lot of gaps, but I’m surmising that her life might not have worked out quite as she had hoped.

She is still crazy busy, and communications have been slow. She may not be red hot about connecting again. Or she may still be overworked and just plain tired. This is still to be determined.

But I remember a time when we were in our teens and talked about everything, sharing so many values, goals and outlooks. It would be nice if there can still be a connection, but if not, I will respect that.

No matter what, I am just happy that, indeed, she did not fall off the face of the earth. And that I found her.

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Stefanie Pettit can be reached at upwindsailor@comcast.net