The Sugar of Years

Recently a friend of mine passed away. Sad news. It pierced my heart. What's odd (I don't know if it's odd actually) is that I hadn't seen this person in 24 years. I hadn't talked to her or even connected with her on Facebook. I contact everybody on Facebook. She didn't have a Facebook account. She was dying of cancer. More recently a teacher from our high school years posted a bunch of pictures of my friend and I and a group of our friends from our graduating class. Subsequently I have reconnected with another classmate from those pictures and it's like old home week. The number of people in those pictures without Facebook accounts has shrunken rapidly (I'm lookin' at you Matt and Doug and Carol and Tara...).
When I look at those pictures and talk to my new/old friend and think about the one who just passed away, it is a warm feeling. I really did enjoy my high school friends. And it is a joy to reconnect with so many of them on Facebook. I remember the various personalities and how my relationship with various ones was way back in the good ol' 80's. And it is interesting to think about how my relationship with each is now. Some are just the same as always, both good and bad. Some have come into relationship with Jesus, praise the Lord. But when I left Perry County, I barely looked back. And the 24-year gap between me and my deceased friend is pretty common for the whole class of 1987. So, as in any reflection done from this distance of years, nothing was as bad or as good back then as it appears from now. The guys were somewhat as cool, the gals somewhat as pretty, but there was nuance all the way through. For example, the great majority of my gang of friends did not share my love of Jesus. And most of them had different attitudes toward alchohol and sexual more's. We saw each other in class, in the hall, at ball games, at parties, but there was a deep, dark line when it came to faith and morals. I really was close to them, "loved" them. And there were some I was closer to than others. But there is sugar in the years. The ones I was tight with? The best. The jerks and arrogant divas? Not so bad. But the best thing about the 24-year gap? I am no longer 18. I am no longer a teenager with hormones racing through my body, clouding my judgment about all of those relationships. Nah. I'm 42. And if we were in that same calculus class today? Things would be totally different. Of course they would.