Close Encounters of the Best Kind
After Kate Bowler wrote about returning to her hometown for a summer vacation, she recently asked readers to write about a place or person that brings us back to ourselves almost immediately.
I knew immediately what to say. That always happens to me when I return to my hometown, a thousand miles away. At a high school reunion, we can't pretend to be something we’re not. We take off our masks. They knew us before we became who we are today. They know our roots. They know our beginnings and early development. They were there and cared for us, and still do. We knew how to speak our truth then without questioning it.
I remember a boy in my class whom I knew only peripherally telling me in a science class that he planned to drop out of high school. I told him not to do it. I saw him at a class reunion twenty-five years later. He came up to me, said he had listened to me, didn't leave, and thanked me. I do not remember the incident twenty-five years earlier when I simply told him not to leave school. I think it was probably a reflexive truth about education that had become part of my DNA even at that early age.
Many years later, I now think about him, especially as he recently died, and I read over his obituary. He never left our hometown and worked at the pulp and paper mill there for 40 years as a third-generation employee. He was well known for his skill and work ethic as a welder. Technology and photography became his hobbies, and he was endlessly curious. He was deeply loved by his family. During his retirement, he regularly met old friends for breakfast, spent time riding along on friends’ crabbing boats, and enjoyed cooking crabs. After his wife died, he developed a relationship with another member of our high school class of thirty -three whose spouse had also died.
He lived life to the fullest until the end. He will be remembered for his kindness, skills, and curiosity, as well as for the many quiet ways he helped those around him.
As I read his obituary, it was clear that he loved and was loved.
I have a friend who tells me that perhaps encounters like the one in high school might be our sole purpose in life.
Joanna joannaseibert.com