Class Reunion

I graduated from Auburndale High School in 1986.

After graduation, I stayed around town for a few years and worked at a local hardware store. Then, in 1989, I joined the Air Force and moved away. Over the years I came home from time to time and occasionally saw some of the people I went to school with, but I never made it to a class reunion. There was always a reason. Often it was the Air Force. I was deployed, stationed somewhere else, or life simply got in the way.

But for some reason, our 40th reunion felt different. I felt very strongly that I needed to be there.

Looking back, I think that feeling probably began with my friend Larry Jenkins.

Several years ago, I happened to be home when some friends organized a small get-together at Troy Bailey’s house. There were only six or eight of us, and Larry was there. Just a few days later, he would learn that he had cancer.

There was something about that evening that stayed with me. Sitting around with those guys reminded me of a closeness I hadn’t thought much about in years. Decades had passed, but somehow that connection was still there.

Later, after Larry had undergone surgery to remove cancer from his jaw, I happened to be home again. He wasn’t doing well, and I went to see him.

It would be the last time I saw him.

Larry eventually lost his battle with cancer, but I think he left me with something I didn’t fully understand at the time. His death began making me realize that these relationships from my youth mattered more than I had allowed myself to recognize.

A couple of years ago, my father-in-law passed away, and I returned home for his funeral. My friend Tony Insua organized a luncheon while I was there. Once again, six or eight old friends gathered around a table.

This time, my oldest son and daughter were with me.

They were fascinated.

They listened as we told stories and remembered little details from 40 years ago as if they had happened yesterday. Things that seemed completely ordinary to us were almost incomprehensible to my kids.

At one point the subject came up about how we always knew where everyone would be on a Friday night.

“Behind McDonald’s.”

My kids couldn’t understand it.

“How did you know everybody would be there? You didn’t have cell phones.”

We just knew.

Watching my children watch us made me realize again that there was something unusual about these friendships.

My relationship with my parents and sister has been strained over the years, and some of the bonds we once had have been lost. As a result, I’ve learned to hold especially close to my immediate family, my wife and my children.

Maybe that’s part of why what happened this weekend affected me so deeply.

For the reunion, I stayed with Tony. That alone turned out to be a gift. We had time to talk about life, our families, our experiences and the way we see the world. I discovered that Tony and I are very much alike in many ways.

I was also impressed by something about him that I hadn’t fully appreciated before. Tony knows people. Not simply their names, he knows what’s happening in their lives. He knows who’s doing well, who’s struggling, who’s moved away and, sadly, who we’ve lost. I could mention almost anyone from Auburndale, and chances were Tony knew something about them.

On the drive to the reunion, Tony asked me a question.

“Is there anybody you’re really hoping will be there?”

I named a few people I had been close to in high school and hadn’t seen in nearly 40 years. We talked about how much I hoped I’d get to see them.

What never occurred to me was that anyone might be having that same conversation about me.

At the reunion, several people told me that I was one of the people they had been looking forward to seeing. A few indicated that knowing I was coming had influenced their decision to attend.

I didn’t know quite what to do with that.

Even now, I’m a little overwhelmed by it.

I had spent the trip thinking about the people I wanted to see without ever considering that perhaps someone was hoping to see me.

There were several moments during the weekend that hit me emotionally, but one in particular involved my friend Julie.

When we were young, Julie was involved in a horrific accident. She was driving down the highway when a tractor carrying a bucket turned near the road, and she struck the rear of the tractor and the bucket.

I went to the hospital to see her, but she was in intensive care and only family members were allowed in. Julie didn’t have a brother, but her mother told the hospital staff that I was her brother so they would let me through.

I still remember walking into that room.

Her beautiful face was covered with stitches. There were tubes coming out of her. I remember being devastated by seeing her that way.

I sat beside her, held her hand and talked to her.

I don’t remember how long I stayed.

Forty years later, I saw Julie at our reunion.

I walked over, hugged her and told her how glad I was to see her. Then I asked her something I had wondered about.

“Do you remember me sitting with you in the hospital after your accident?”

She did.

She thanked me.

And then we stood there holding one another and crying.

Julie told me that the accident had, in her words, “messed her up,” and that in some ways she was still dealing with it today.

I can’t change that for her. But maybe for a little while all those years ago, I helped carry a tiny piece of that burden.

And maybe this weekend, for just a moment, we carried it together again.

Later, Troy Bailey and I were sitting at a table talking. I told him something I had been thinking throughout the weekend.

“This feels more like a family reunion than a class reunion.”

Something about that must have struck both of us.

We looked at each other, and somehow the conversation came around to the fact that we loved one another.

And we meant it.

This wasn’t a couple of guys who had been drinking, getting nostalgic and throwing around “I love you, man.”

It came from the heart.

I love some of these people.

That realization surprised me.

I don’t know why it took a 40th high school reunion for me to understand it, but it did.

I’ve also been rereading the New Testament recently, and something I’ve been thinking about is the idea that one day what is unseen will be revealed. I believe there will come a time when we understand our lives more completely, including the impact our words, choices and actions had on other people.

The good and the bad.

Perhaps we’ll finally understand how a small act of kindness affected someone, or how a careless word hurt someone. We may see moments we have completely forgotten that another person carried with them for a lifetime.

I believe God calls us to love one another and to leave a positive impact on the people whose lives cross ours.

In a strange way, this reunion gave me a tiny glimpse of what I imagine that revelation might be like.

People told stories involving me that I had forgotten. They remembered things I had said or done and told me what those moments meant to them.

It was incredibly humbling.

It also left me with some guilt.

While I was building a career, serving in the military, raising a family and living my life thousands of miles away, I allowed many of these friendships to fade into the background. I didn’t intentionally abandon them. Life simply moved on.

But maybe “life moved on” isn’t quite a good enough excuse.

Because one of the things Tony and I talked about this weekend was how little some of us have actually changed.

Of course we’ve changed physically. Forty years will do that.

And every one of us now carries a lifetime of experiences that the kids we were in 1986 couldn’t possibly have imagined. We’ve experienced marriage, children, careers, successes, failures, joy, disappointment, sickness, grief and loss.

But something remarkable happens when you sit across the table from someone you knew when you were 17.

You can still see that kid.

That inquisitive, funny, adventurous, loving, friendly person is still in there.

And somehow they can still see that person in you.

Maybe that’s why the connection came back so quickly. Maybe it never really disappeared at all.

Perhaps the flame simply hadn’t been tended.

That thought gives me some hope, especially in a world that can sometimes seem overwhelmed by anger, pain, rudeness and indifference. It’s easy to believe that we’ve lost something as a society, that people don’t care for one another the way they once did.

But I know that’s not entirely true.

I saw it this weekend.

I felt it.

There was laughter. There were stories. There were hugs. There were tears. And there were people who hadn’t seen one another in decades saying, without embarrassment, “I love you.”

And now something else is happening.

My son Levi is marrying Grayce next June in Estes Park, Colorado. Grayce is Tony’s daughter.

Several of these old friends have already expressed interest in coming.

There’s something beautiful about that.

These aren’t simply people with whom I share memories from 1986. We’re still becoming part of one another’s stories. Forty years after high school, our children are getting married, our families are becoming connected, and some of the same people who shared my youth may be standing beside us as we celebrate another chapter of our lives.

We’re still making memories together.

I left Auburndale many years ago and built a life somewhere else. I served a career in the Air Force. I married, raised children and created a family and a life that I love.

But this weekend reminded me that leaving a place doesn’t necessarily mean leaving behind the people who helped make you who you are.

Sometimes those relationships are still there, quietly waiting.

I went to Auburndale expecting to attend my 40th class reunion.

Instead, I think I rediscovered part of my family.

And maybe the most important thing I brought home with me is the realization that I don’t want another 40 years to pass before I tell these people what they mean to me.

The flame is still burning.

Now it’s up to us to tend it. 

Class of 1986…I love you.