"We made it another year," I said.
"Yes, we did," he said.
Then the core of our dearest friends of the past 30-40+ years sitting around the table concurred. We'd been coming to Chico since 1989 to visit Robby at least one to two times per year. Many other dear friends in our overlapping rings of friendships had also been coming to visit for decades as well. If we included the five years post high school when we'd see him, and each other, in Visalia where we grew up, that included a lot of memories of friendships as thick as thieves; we know where many of our bones are buried.
There's also something new revealing itself every time we get together, like this time our friend Rob finding out that Robby had kissed his old girlfriend back in high school. Something he didn't know, and didn't really bother him now, but yet, it kinda did. That conversation went on a bit too long during our meal, as many of our sometimes obsessive, bared-soul conversations can do, but hey, there's always another confession to make and then a bone to bury.
As we got up from the table and headed out for the rest of the day, Robby wheeling himself out in his wheelchair, I thought of an earlier what-if conversation we had. What if we had convinced Robby not to go to the the swim meet that Easter break day in April of our senior year. He was a swimmer and a water polo player, and a handful of us were heading out to Morro Bay for the day, about a two and a half hour drive one way. He thought about it, but really didn't want to miss one of the first swim meets of the season that year. I remember trying to work him over about it, but in the end, he didn't want to miss the meet.
And at that very swim meet was where he broke his neck. Ever since, he uses a wheelchair for mobility. For decades he's lived fairly independently, with regular home health care and help from friends and family.
What would've happened if he never went to that swim meet and went to the coast with us instead? Where would he be now and what would he be doing? He's been an amazing artist over the years and a fervent comic book collector; would he have become a successful commercial artist working for Marvel or DC?
And the even bigger question -- would we all still be friends? Robby has become the cathartic center of so many of our concentric rings of mutual friends, but would we all still be getting together year after year and celebrating these very loving friendships?
That's not really the right question, though, nor a valid one, because the lifetime journeys we've experienced and shared together over the years are real and intact. My dad used to say "should-ofs and could-ofs don't mean squat," only where you're at today and the decisions you make daily are of any consequence. And while there's no one who thinks about the what-if of not breaking his neck more than Robby himself, knowing that he'd trade all the things he's acquired over the years to un-break it, we are all men of our present age, and the years since junior high, high school and beyond of our shared histories are the memories that bind our friendships together today. We've made it another year and have all become the cathartic centers to each other with a present awareness we've never been more grateful for.
Other past posts about these friends of mine:
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