sometimes you just have to call

My mom emailed me this morning to let me know that someone had passed away. He was the father of high school classmates, and happened to be the son of the woman (Barbara) that my dear friend Connie stayed with as an exchange student.

I knew I had to let Connie know because Barbara lost another son back in the '90's (it sounds weird to say that and know how long ago it really was) and her husband passed away around ten years ago. She still has many grandchildren and even great grandchildren and two (?) lovely daughters. Connie was able to keep in touch with a couple of them through email, but I know how easy it is to lose touch. I wanted to let her know because I know she knew the son and that's just the kind of news you share.

Connie and I haven't been able to talk in a couple of years (honestly, I think it's been two years -that's not too bad considering she lives in Germany, is married and has two children, and I'm not just sitting around doing nothing). We also kept in touch via email, then came facebook.

As another friend put it, "Facebook is what computers were to our generation." If you don't jump on board, you're going to get left behind and stuck in the past.

But I know how difficult it is to talk to someone you haven't talked to in a long time. What do you say? Well, it's easy. There's no need to apologize because life happens. You can apologize if you think it's necessary, but typically the other party understands. We pretty much picked up where we left off. Where are you working? How old are Chiara and Paul? How are your parents and your brother? When you're good friends, it's easy to find things to talk about. You don't have to resort to talking about the weather (but it's okay if you do, because it is, after all almost half way around the world and the weather is mostly the same, it's fun to find that out), you just fill each other in on what's been going on. You can start off with general info and get specific as the conversation continues.

In the end all that matters is that we talked and caught up. It didn't feel as though two years had passed without talking, even though I know so much has changed in our lives. And even though we can't promise we'll ever get to Germany to visit, Bill and I still plan and dream about a day when we can.