The Pause Button

Ron and I were virtually inseparable as teens. We had a unique bond. No one would have expected us to be best friends. I was a geek even before geeks existed. I helped Ron with his math homework and made a little money by doing calculations with my slide rule faster than the other kids in the cafeteria could with their newfangled calculators. Ron, on the other hand, was the cool jock. He pretty much beat me in every game or sport we played, and he was the one the girls wanted to hang around with.

I really liked one of the girls in our youth group and hoped she would ask me to her school's Sadie Hawkins Dance. I was really excited when she came up to me one Wednesday evening and asked if she could speak to me privately for a minute.

This was it!!!! I was going to Sadie Hawkins with her!!!

She spoke as soon as we got a little bit away from the rest of the group, saying, "Do you think Ron would go to the Sadie Hawkins Dance with me if I asked him?"

I was shell shocked! Here I was certain that she was going to ask me to the dance, but all she really wanted to ask me was whether I thought my best friend would consider an invitation from her. I hid my disappointment and told her I was pretty sure he would.

Yes, Ron and I were about as different as they come, but somehow we had ended up best friends.

Life intervened and the kids who were inseparable became distant friends. I moved to Wisconsin three decades ago and our contacts gradually tapered off to almost nil. Facebook has recently allowed us to sort of keep track of each other, but our visits and conversations are few and far between.

I hadn't talked with Ron for a long time - nearly four years, in fact. The last time we visited was shortly before Mom died when I stopped by his house for coffee and conversation.

A lot has happened since then.

Four years is a long time.

I had a business trip that took me to St. Louis for a week earlier this month. I finished up with the business side of the trip on Thursday. Diane came in on the train so we could spend Friday and Saturday visiting with family. Friday morning, though, was set aside to visit with Ron.

I suppose it would seem normal that our first conversation would be awkward, a bit of small talk about our families interspersed with long periods of silence.

That might be normal, but our relationship was never normal. While we're both a bit older, a bit grayer and, perhaps, a bit chunkier than the last time we sat at his dining room table; our visit was as if time had stood still. We had the relaxed conversation that only true friends can have. There was, of course, all of the obligatory updates about our kids, but our conversation was more like one you would expect between people who get together every week.

We talked about the similarities between his battle with cancer and Diane's, we talked about Dad dying shortly after we moved into the house behind Ron's family, and we talked about the difficulties of watching his parents grow old.

We talked like people who really knew each other; like the friends we were and, obviously, always will be. We talked like people for whom time had stood still and had merely put our conversation on pause for the last four years.

I don't know when we will have the next chance to sit and talk, but I know that, whenever it is, we'll just pick up where we left off.

Once again, we'll just release the pause button and our friendship will continue on as if we'd never paused at all.