Blog 80 The Great Mystery (Gary)

            I reflect back to my deceased friend and me working together at the probation department before Rick eventually went to another job.  We shared many ideas spiritually and creatively.  We talked about doing workshops and how we might put something together.

            We took our sons, both named Chris, to fish at my secret spot on the Stanislaus River.  He showed me how to prepare a fish.  We promised to repeat the experience or reconnect, but we got too busy with work.  I was at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View by then and kept telling myself I should call. 

            It was almost the end of the summer, as I remember.  I was working the evening shift at the Trimble Road and First Street hospital office in San Jose.  I was sitting at my desk, and I suddenly felt a warm tingling running up my left arm akin to a low voltage electrical charge.  I thought it strange and turned to see if I was feeling the setting sun behind me, cast upon my shoulder, but the sunlight on the floor was a distance away.  I thought, “I need to tell someone.”  I wanted a witness to my experience.  Maybe this was the sign of a heart attack, but it seemed too electric and without pain.  I opened the door and realized that no one was there.  It was about 6:20 p.m. and I was the last person on duty.  I took in the feeling, and within three or four minutes it was gone.

            I went home and found out that Rick had been badly mangled in an auto accident, his left arm almost torn off, but that he had amazingly lived a short time in emergency care.  The accident had occurred about the same time as my experience.  My wife told me that a book Rick had loaned me—Seven Arrows by Native American writer Hyemeyohsts Storm—had fallen off the bookshelf at home at about the same time.  I was stunned, shocked. 

            I had witnessed my friend in love and dating his wife, I had been at their wedding, we had fished with our sons, and I was at his grave.  It was all back, on the mountain today.  I relived those moments, and grieved not just for him, but this time, for her as well.

            We had a deep connection, deeper than I had been aware of.  We had spun dreams together over lunch but we were too busy and too driven to create together what we could have.

            What friends have you lost track of because you or they were too busy?  Lead, make the call, or wait until . . . what?

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