Don't put off looking for old friends

[palitoy]

This past week I got some really terrible news.

One of my favourite people growing up was a kid named Freddy, he sat next to me in grade five. We became friends when he saw me pull out the same Crestwood book (Creature from the Black Lagoon) during reading time and handed me his Famous Monsters saying "You look like you need something new". I think of him everytime I see an issue.

The next two years were a bonding over Bruce Lee and Godzilla movies, he moved away in the 7th grade. A lot of people I knew were lucky enough to go to high school with him and have asked me over the years if I've seen him.

Last week I found my old lunchbox and it's covered in cool Samurai stickers from the Philippines that I got from Freddy.

Well, a mutual friend just let me know that he's dead.

It's the second time in my life where I stalled on contacting or reaching out to an old friend, the last time I just choked on the voice mail message, only to have this person I shared my childhood with die.

If you have a chance to look up an old friend and an interest, please do it.

[cjefferys]

Oh man, I'm really sorry to hear that. And what you say is very true, I need to do some reconnecting with a couple folks myself, we aren't getting any younger. :-(

[Marvelmania]

So sad and your advise is 100% correct! We often take too many things such as old friends for granted. Life is short enough and for some much too short :(
Sorry for your loss.

[Iron Mego]

Sorry to hear this. I've been trying to track down my best friend from elementary school for a couple years with no luck. This is why EVERYONE should get on Facebook. Seriously. I'm having zero luck finding him and it kinda depresses me every time I try.

[Nostalgiabuff]

sorry to hear this Brian. it's a painful reminder how short life is and how important it is to make every minute count. Deepest sympathies

[Hedji]

Saddened to hear that Brian. It's a sobering reminder how precious time and friendship are.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Sorry to hear that Brian. I think we tend to put old friends in a time bubble of some sorts; our lives move on, but they are in stasis out there, waiting for us to reconnect with them when we get time. The truth is, time and life marches on, and sometimes it doesn't go well. I lost a college friend and mentor in a car accident I knew nothing about. It was a year before I heard of his passing, and I was devastated.

Hang in there.

Chris

[Neutron X]

Sorry to hear this. Life is so short and moves so fast we miss out on friends we lose track of.

[HardyGirl]

I'm sorry for your loss, Brian.

[Hedji]

Giving this more thought throughout the day... you really shouldn't beat yourself up over it either, though. Sometimes, as your life progresses, you and your environment change so much, it can be difficult to "go back" and re-integrate old friends into your new world. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't try, but I've connected with kid friends who are now adults only to find that either I've changed so much or they've changed so much that it makes me miss the old friend more. It's hard to put into words.

[SKotK]

Brian, I can definitely sympathize with your situation, and I'm sorry for your loss...old friends are very important to me, even when we've been separated by time, distance, lifestyles, and sometimes even politics. I try to stay in touch with all of my old friends, if possible. But it's not always possible.

I've got a positive story to share on that subject, about a great old friend from grade school who I'd lost touch with for over 30 years and found again.

When I was in 6th grade, I made friends with this kid after we started talking about Dungeons & Dragons - it turned out he had the game, and I was fascinated by it. So I told him to bring it to school so we could play. We set up a game, and soon other people joined. Then it branched out from there until we had multiple groups playing. Eventually, everyone was playing: popular kids, sports kids, everyone. It was a beautiful moment while it lasted.

So we bonded over D&D, but many other things as well. He and I were some of the first kids around to have home computers: we each had a TI-99/4a and were hugely into them. We were also both into comic books, sci-fi, Atari, etc. We hung out quite a bit and he quickly became one of my best friends. But then after 8th grade, his parents moved to another state. We wrote back and forth a couple times, and then we lost touch.

Years later I wondered how he was doing, and I tried to look him up, but no luck. I checked with old classmates, but none of them knew how to get hold of him. Eventually, I became connected on the internet, and I looked him up there...but again, no luck. Not a trace. I would continue looking him up every so often for many years after that: Google, MySpace, Facebook, etc. and never found anything. I contacted numerous people with his same name, and some of them got back to me but were not him.

Over time I began to wonder if he was even still alive. I knew he was diabetic and had to give himself insulin shots all the time, and that worried me. Considering he was as into computers as I was, I figured he would have to have wound up on the net somewhere, but nothing ever turned up. After 3 decades passed with no trace of him, I felt it was pretty likely he had died...maybe he didn't even make it out of the 1980s. At this point, I just wanted to find confirmation that he had passed on...so maybe every 6 months I would check again.

Then about year ago I just sort of randomly did a search on his name again, and I found a profile on LinkedIn that caught my eye. The name and age was right, and it looked like the kind of career path that I imagined he would have taken. There was a photo included, but it was such a tiny thumbnail it did me no good...not to mention that it had been over 30 years at this point, and I had no idea what he would look like today.

So I figured, what the heck...and I looked up the latest company on that resume. Their website had large photos of their employees. The one with his name looked like it could possibly be him, maybe. I compared it with the only photo I had from our 6th grade class picture...and a lot of the facial characteristics matched up. So I decided to call the company and ask to talk to him. What could it hurt, right?

A voice answered. I said who I was, and asked if he'd happened to attend the same grade school I did. A short pause followed. Then he said my name back, and said "How the HELL did you find me?!" A three-hour incredulous conversation of catching up followed before we finally decided we'd better call back and talk again later. And we did, and talked for hours again. Eventually we met up in my town while he was passing through, and we played a round of DUNGEON! fantasy board game for old time's sake! What a blast.

30 years. Over 30 years had passed since we'd spoken. It was strange and amazing to be hanging out again, but what a great reunion after so much time, especially after I'd pretty much given up hope that he was still alive. He didn't do social media and had stayed off the radar apart from work-related stuff, so that's how I finally found him. I'm so glad to know he's still on this earth.

Sometimes we're lucky and find old friends again. Sometimes we're not so lucky and they pass away before we have the chance. Don't give up searching, and when you find them, keep in touch so you don't lose them again.

--SKot

[Hector]

I feel for you, Brian...so sorry for your loss.

[Spawn67]

So sorry to hear that Brian..
You are right about reconnecting with old friends. It feels good to let my old friends know how much those times as kids and teens to me were.
On a positive note I reconnected with a childhood friend who I spent every summer with from 1977-1989 in 2012 on Facebook. I was hesitant at first because we went down different paths in life. So eventually I sent him a message and he was ecstatic to here from me and turns out is just as nostalgic for those days as I am. We've reconnected and when we see each other although we are very different were instantly kids when we see each other.
However on the catch 22 I've tried to reconnect with some old friends who were so far removed from who they once were and refused to acknowledge any good times we once had. Was kind of heartbreaking actually.
Time marches on...

[ScottA]

That's tough B. But you speak the truth. There are several I think of from school I think about looking up and contacting.

[B-Lister]

There are two people I am trying very hard to find from when I was a boy in Virginia.

Josh Lehman and Travis Ayres

Unfortunately, both have pretty common names.