The Bench Stayed Empty as I Passed It By

Sunday was a beautiful day for a walk. I had six miles ahead of me, nowhere in particular I needed to be, and plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. I'd been feeling a little out of sorts lately. Not unhappy. Not particularly troubled by anything. Just not quite like my usual self. Which is an odd feeling when there's nothing obviously wrong.

I have a beautiful life. A husband I love, family, friends, a comfortable home, and the freedom to spend a Sunday walking six miles simply because I feel like it.

So what was I feeling out of sorts about?

Fortunately, six miles gives you plenty of time to think about absolutely nothing and, somehow, everything.

Somewhere along the way, my thoughts wandered to an old friend. Not just any friend. One of my dearest friends of forty-four years. We haven't been part of each other's lives for a while now. There wasn't some spectacular falling-out. No dramatic confrontation. No final conversation where we decided we were done.

We simply grew apart.

I suppose that happens when you've known someone for nearly half a century. Lives change. Priorities shift. The things that once brought you together don't always keep you together.

I've accepted that.

It doesn't mean I've forgotten what the friendship felt like.

As I walked, I found myself thinking about calling her. It was Sunday. She was probably home. Or at least she might be available. There was a bench ahead, right in front of the water. I could sit there for a while, take in the view, and call her. We could catch up. I could hear her voice.

It was such a simple thought. For a few moments, I could almost imagine myself doing it.

There was a time when I wouldn't have given it a second thought. We talked about everything. Work. Home. The people in our lives. Our dreams. Our hobbies. Our health. Whatever was happening that week.

Sometimes we had something important to discuss. Sometimes we didn't. It never mattered. We could move from a serious conversation to something completely ridiculous without missing a beat. There was a comfort in knowing someone well enough that you didn't have to consider what you were going to say before you said it.

We knew each other's histories. We knew the people, the circumstances, and the stories behind the stories. Forty-four years gives you a considerable amount of material to work with. And we used it.

There was something reassuring about those conversations. Not because we always agreed or had particularly brilliant things to say, but because they were easy.

I never had to come up with a reason to call.

I just called.

As I got closer to the bench, I started wondering what I would say if she answered.

“Hi. How are you?”

That seemed reasonable enough.

Then what?

How do you catch up on a life you've slowly stopped being part of? Where do you begin when the conversations that once happened naturally have become something you need to plan?

I could ask about her family. Her health. What she'd been doing lately. All perfectly normal questions. But I realized I wasn't really looking for information. I just wanted to hear her voice. Somehow that made picking up the phone feel more complicated than it should have.

I reached the bench.

I looked at the water.

I kept walking.

No dramatic moment. No tears. No great internal struggle. Just a woman walking past an empty bench on a Sunday afternoon. It wasn't until I'd passed the bench that I realized something about that moment was bothering me. It wasn’t the decision not to call. It was the fact that calling had become a decision at all.

I have many friends I could call on a Sunday, and we'd have a perfectly lovely conversation. I wasn't looking for just anyone to fill the afternoon.

I missed her.

I hadn't expected to miss something so ordinary. A conversation that didn't require a reason, an invitation, or even a particular subject. You just look up one day and realize that a person who once knew the smallest details of your life no longer knows what you did last weekend. And you don't know what they did either.

It's a strange thing, having so much history with someone and so little knowledge of their present. I think that's what caught me off guard. For forty-four years, we built a friendship out of thousands of ordinary conversations. The kind you don't think to remember because you assume there will always be another one.

Another Sunday.

Another phone call.

Another opportunity to tell her something funny that happened or complain about something ridiculous or talk through whatever was on my mind.

Then, somewhere along the way, those conversations became less frequent. And eventually, they stopped. Not with a bang. Not even with a goodbye. They just stopped.

I kept thinking about that as I walked.

I wonder if sometimes we expect being happy with our lives to mean we shouldn't miss anything from the lives we lived before. As though appreciating what we have requires us to stop noticing what's no longer there.

I can love my life and still miss my friend.

I can accept that we've grown apart and still wish, for a moment, that we hadn't.

I can have plenty of people to talk to and still want to hear one particular voice. None of those things cancels out the others.

I don't know whether that moment had anything to do with feeling out of sorts lately. Maybe having six miles and nowhere else I needed to be simply gave me time to notice something I hadn't thought about in a while. Maybe it doesn't explain anything at all.

Not everything needs an explanation.

Sometimes we simply notice something that matters to us.

By the time I finished my walk, nothing about my life had changed. I hadn't called her. I hadn't decided whether I would. I didn't know if we'd ever find our way back to the kind of friendship we'd once shared.

But something about that afternoon stayed with me.

I missed having someone I never had to think about calling. For forty-four years, I could pick up the phone without wondering what I'd say.

On Sunday, I couldn't.

The bench stayed empty as I passed it by.