Lost Friends

Those early years we often don’t fully appreciate our friendships. I moved away from Maple Heights, Ohio and never really stayed in touch with anyone. Our lives move forward into a new trajectory… and we meet new people.

But as we get older, and begin to understand ourselves a bit, we are less haphazard in our friendships. We begin to seek out like minded people with values or interests similar to ours. It takes time. New interests or changes in geography test these friendships. And as we are flung forward by fate and circumstances, and choices, for better or worse, we disconnect and reconnect with many people of greater or lesser influence upon us.

Unfortunately, like the Robert Frost poem about two roads diverging, many of the wonderful people who were once part of our lives get left behind. Occasionally it is due to our own neglect, or failure to value those treasured people.

As we get older, we value the good in others more deeply, especially when there are those rare connections that seem like true gifts. But it is with great pain and dismay that I remember all the really special people whom I failed to value, and even sometimes hurt through my own insensitivity and self-centeredness.

Here’s a song about old friends by Dylan from his second album, The Freewhelin’ Bob Dylan. As I listen to it again I am impressed at the maturity he demonstrated in these early songs.

Bob Dylan’s Dream
by Bob Dylan, in a tone most mournful…

While riding on a train goin' west,
I fell asleep for to take my rest.
I dreamed a dream that made me sad,
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon,
Where we together weathered many a storm,
Laughin' and singin' till the early hours of the morn.

By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung,
Our words were told, our songs were sung,
Where we longed for nothin' and were quite satisfied
Talkin' and a-jokin' about the world outside.

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold,
We never thought we could ever get old.
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one.

As easy it was to tell black from white,
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right.
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.

How many a year has passed and gone,
And many a gamble has been lost and won,
And many a road taken by many a friend,
And each one I've never seen again.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
That we could sit simply in that room again.
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat,
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.

If you have a friend whom you have known all your life since grade school, I consider you most blessed. If you have a friend whom you have not stayed in touch with because you moved away, get back in touch… and promise to meet again some day.