20 March 1999 was the day I first set foot on English soil. Adjusting to living and working here was a time of deep learning. Learning about myself, learning about another culture, learning that just because things are different, does not make it right or wrong. I was very lucky. There were several people who supported me those first days, months and years.
Eventually the time came when I could almost stand on my own two feet so to speak. Gradually I let go of those who helped me so generously. I saw them less frequently; spoke to them less frequently; until our touch point became the annual Christmas card.
From time to time I would put on my to-do list: Call Brain M and Brian S and then the day – no days – would get filled up with ‘stuff’ that seemed more important, more urgent and calling the Brians would fall by the wayside.
Sometime this year I resolved to go and see them. It had been too long since the last phone call and calling them was just not going to be good enough. And still it took me a while to get up to Manchester and then over to Southwold in Suffolk. So the weekend of 13 and 14 October, I did it – and I am so grateful and pleased I did.
It was such joy to see Brian in Manchester. Eighty years old with a glint in his eye, a keen sense of humour and infectious chuckle, we spent time catching up with each other on family, friends, life, setting the world to rights and simply enjoying each other’s company.
The next morning it was off to Southwold. Did I mention it was a road trip and I was doing all the driving? Well, I don’t know what happened to the planning but I somehow missed the fact that it would take the best part of five and a half hours to get from Manchester to Southwold. Fortunately Brian in Southwold was on the ball and got my flustered message that I would not be in time for lunch. Generous as always and forgiving, he and his partner fussed over me when I eventually arrived, looked after me, fed me and made sure I was rested enough for the two and a half hour drive home.
How good it was to see him too and catch up with where we’ve been, what we’ve done and where we’re headed. His direction and guidance when I first arrived in the UK helped me so much. I am eternally grateful.
Twelve hours of driving more than six hundred miles is not exactly an ‘around the corner’ trip – it is exhausting! I am so glad I did it.
How easy it is to fall into the trap of allowing the stuff of life to come between us and our friends. The author and poet Charles Hanson Towne describes it so eloquently:
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end;
Yet days go by, and weeks rush on,
And before I know it a year is gone.
And I never see my old friend’s face,
For life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men:
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name.
“Tomorrow,” I say, “I will call on Jim,
Just show him that I’m thinking of him.”
But tomorrow comes – and tomorrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner! – yet miles away…
“Here’s a telegram, sir …”
“Jim died today.”
And that’s what we get, and deserve in the end:
Around the corner, a vanished friend.
