I was just outside of Lexington, Kentucky, driving west on I-64 in January of 2017 when the phone rang. It was my cousin (whom I’ve called “Brother” most of my life) Mike, so naturally I answered. After the customary greetings Mike said, “I need a favor”. The words “Anything for you, Brother” slid between my lips as smooth and natural as one can imagine.
Mike spends the next couple minutes telling me that he needs me to reopen my Facebook account, make some calls and get involved with our high school classmates for our 30th Alumni celebration.
Well, shit.
I’d retired a couple years earlier and moved back to the Appalachians, but not back to my hometown. I was within driving distance…Mike was not. I was close, I had the free time…I was simply the logistical solution to a problem he couldn’t reasonably attend to at the time. I’d do anything for Mike…he knows it and I know the same of him. At the time, this seems like an awful big “ask”, though.
“Anything for you, Brother.” The words echoed in my head. I’m an idiot.
I hadn’t seen most of my classmates since the summer of 1987. My chosen profession had made my ventures back to my hometown few and far between. Our high school alumni festivities take place on Memorial Day weekend and every 5th year we get together as a class. My son was born on May 27th, 1992…4,600 miles away from my hometown…on the weekend of my class attending their first alumni get-together. Therefore, his birthday usually fell on or near Alumni weekend. Nathan’s birthday always took priority, so I was never free to travel on that weekend.
“Anything for you, Brother.” I’d said it. I’d meant it. Shit. I was stuck.
It’s not that I didn’t want to see my classmates. I had no ill-will or bad feelings. Whether they knew it or not, they’d crossed my mind daily over the 30 years since we’d roamed the streets of Sistersville and the halls of our Alma Mater. But…it had been 30 years. We’d scattered, gone to college or off to work somewhere. Some had come back home to start their lives and others (like me and Mike) barely made it home for a couple days, maybe once or twice a year. Marriages, divorces, kids, grandkids, parents passing….I really didn’t know these people anymore. Some of us communicated on social media, but really nothing of substance was passed. And then…well…there was a good chance that these people wouldn’t like the person I’d become. For someone with a surname that indicates illumination or a lack of weight, I’d had a pretty heavy and dark adulthood…at times it seemed like I was covered in a metric ton of West Virginia’s blackest coal. Now…I love me…and I don’t care who does or doesn’t like me…but I didn’t want to bring a negative vibe into a celebration.
“Anything for you, Brother.” Fuck me.
I got home that night, went through the process of reactivating a Facebook account that I’d shut down six months earlier and started reaching out to my classmates. A meeting was scheduled for a couple weeks later and I made plans to attend. I was dreading it. I’d loved these people once, but that was a lifetime ago. I wasn’t the kid they used to know. I really didn’t want to bring the darkness that followed me (seemingly everywhere) into their lives.
“Anything for you, Brother.” **Sigh**
Survival in any tactical operation is greatly influenced by the thorough completion of reconnaissance and due-diligence. I had no other frame of reference in my tool box of mediocre social skills for the winning of hearts and minds outside of tactical operations. How sad is that? SO….to prepare for that first meeting, I started trolling through the Facebook pages of my classmates, learning what I could. I found myself concerned at times and smiling broadly at others. Everyone seemed relatively happy. Some kept in contact with each other regularly. We were scattered from coast to coast, but there was a core of classmates that had regrouped near home. This was gonna suck. I was the sole outlier in the bunch that would make up that first meeting.
“Anything for you, Brother.” There was no turning back at this point.
When we all finally made it to the correct venue, the meeting went well. I could feel the initial skepticism…it was never uncomfortable, but it was there. I think half the table thought I’d walk away from the meeting and disappear again. We spent the first part of the meeting dividing up jobs and chores for the Alumni festivities. Then ideas were kicked around, considered, voted on and either accepted or shot down…at the end of the night everyone was still smiling and laughing. I had a twinge of something going on inside me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on…but I could feel it. Probably gas from the pizza.
Once we got the ball rolling at that meeting, it became that cartoon snowball that gets rolled down a hill by the Coyote and is supposed to obliterate the unsuspecting Road Runner. You know…the one that just keeps picking up speed and getting bigger and bigger as it makes its way down the mountain. My phone was ringing, texts and messages were bouncing between us and we were making adjustments to our plans on the fly in hopes of creating a successful Alumni. There was no finger-pointing, no animosity and no childish bullshit. Okay…there was a little childish bullshit…but it was the good kind.
After dreading that first meeting, I found myself looking forward to every trip home to work on preparations for Alumni. As the weekend drew near, many of the classmates from out of state showed up for the final touches and the festivities. Smiles and hugs from everyone as they came through the door. By that point it was almost like I’d never left.
Guess what I found out that year. I was still the kid they used to know. I hadn’t seen the little bastard in so long, I forgot what it felt like to be him….to be ME. My classmates were holding onto the key to unlock the cage I’d stuffed him when I left home. I’m not sure I’d ever found him had Mike not called that day. That twinge I blamed on the pizza at the first meeting…that was the Grinch’s heart starting to grow three sizes that day.
In the years since that first reunion a bunch of us have kept in touch pretty regularly. If there’s an opportunity for us to get together, I point the truck toward home and set the cruise. It’s funny…I was thinking about those get-togethers last night and started doing an inventory of what I’ve learned in the last six years from people I’ve known all my life. We talk gardening. We talk automotive. Carpentry, firearms, politics, religion, music, tools, lawn equipment, recipes, canning processes…Hell…I don’t know if we’ve got a topic that’s off limits or has offended someone. What I do know…is that every time we get together, these people teach me something. Sometimes I learn that there’s a tool made specifically for the job I’m trying to do. Sometimes I learn there’s a better type of corn to plant than Silver Queen. Every time, I learn another way in which the humans I was raised with are amazing in their own way. In those lessons, they’ve consistently changed my life for the better.
The Universe is funny. You never know what message is coming next, or who the messenger may be. But somehow, some way…the Universe always gets you to where you need to be at the time you need to be there. SO…Michael…I know I cussed you a little bit at the time…but I now need to Thank You. Your insistence that I reintroduce myself to this tribe of deviants and derelicts that we call classmates has made me a better human being. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to reciprocate in kind for an impact of that magnitude…but…ya know….Anything for You, Brother.