A Small Hole in the World, Only Noticed Years Later

(Blogger's Note: I wrote the piece below, all but the last paragraph, almost a year ago, initially intended to be included in a blog - I left it out because it seemed somehow too personal. Last week I got the souvenir booklet from my 30th High School reunion, which I wasn't able to attend, and on the 'In Memoriam' page, I saw my friend's name and picture. Somehow, now, this piece seems more relevant, although I have no idea why)

About a year ago, my mother, in a phone call, told me that a childhood friend of mine had died. This isn't someone I've remained close to. In fact, I don't think I've seen Esther in upwards of 35 years. At the time she told me, I remember saying: "Oh, that's too bad.." and that was that.

Lately, I've been thinking about that reaction. First, a bit of background on my 'neighborhood' at the time: The first house I remember living in was on a small, close-knit block on a one-block long cul-de-sac street called Monticello on the north side of Chicago. Actually, cul-de-sac isn't even accurate. It was a single city block that simply stopped at the end, which abutted up against a river (which in reality was probably a creek, but to a 5 year old, it was a raging river, thank you). In front of that river, up on the bank, was a large, sturdy chain link fence, which in turn was set up behind a number of concrete embuckments (I seem to remember something like five of them). These embuckments were large, rounded rocklike things, probably about 5-6 feet high, that were painted industrial green. I have trouble remembering what I had for dinner last night, but I can still recall the exact feel of the cold painted concrete on my hands as I climbed up those rocks to sit, as if it were yesterday. And I was last on this block in 1966.

This block was pretty much a complete world for me. The neighbors were always the people we saw, in every social situation. They were family. This was in the early to mid sixties, and it was a time when neighborhoods in the city were much like what the suburbs were going to become later in the decade: Block parties, doors left open, eveyone looked out for everyone else. The block had something like six families with children, several elderly couples, dogs that everyone knew, petted and fed, and you knew every house by the people who lived there, and they had lived there for years. Our house (which seemed more than big enough for me, mom, dad, and my kid brother) was a tiny two-bedroom postage-stamp of a house that had a front door that was really a side door, and that side door was about 10 feet from the side door of the house next door. Esther's house.

Esther was a grade ahead of me, and something like six months older. My brother wasn't even in preschool yet, and Esther was a combination sister, buddy, co-conspirator, and girlfriend (in a 1st grade kind of way). We'd play GI Joe, baseball, and doctor, all in the course of a sunny afternoon. Sure there were the others on the block, the Goldens with their troop of six kids, Little Jody and Big Jody (the odds of two different families on the same block having girls named Jody never amazed me as much as it probably should have), and the older kids a few doors down, but when push came to shove, it was always Esther and me. There probably wasn't a total of five days in four years when we didn't play together.

Then we moved. Not far the way I measure distance now, about a mile and a half, but to a third grader before the advent of soccer moms (or many moms that even drove at all, much less an SUV), it was another continent. Fortunately, third graders are also remarkably bulletproof when it comes to the trauma of relocation. And the new house was a two-story Georgian of positively gargantuan proportions (at least by third grader standards). By the time I got midway through grade school, the house on Monticello was a quaint memory that I had no time for thinking about.

Esther and I ran into each other probably a total of three times since I moved from there, all when we were both in different high schools. Then I heard, when I was in college, that she was sick. Again, I was too self-absorbed to manage anything more than an "oh, that's too bad..."

I don't know how old she was when she died, but I do know it was way too young. As I get older, the regrets compound, and certain periods of one's life take on the "golden age" tinge that we middle-aged baby boomers harp on over and over (and that we spent years making fun of in our parents).

Mostly though, I regret I never got to tell Esther the place she had in who I was, am, and will be. And all in the space of a few scant years. I have had many, many acquaintances since then, and more than a few friends, but there's only one first real friend in your life, and despite all that goes on around you, there's a little hole in the world that stays there when that friend is gone. Even when you don't notice that space for years at a time. I miss her a whole lot, and the worst part is it's years too late.

If you have the good fortune to have your first friend ever somewhere in your roll-a-dex, or even know what city they live in, do yourself a favor and look them up. There will come a day when you (or they) will regret not doing it, only after it's too late.