Lost

Several months ago a friend and co-worker up and quit his job. He had been struggling with a bunch of different things and was basically about as stressed out as you can get. I won’t go into any details out of respect for him and in the hope that he reads this someday. He left under some less than ideal circumstances and he and I have not been in contact since. I have to face the reality that our friendship may be over. About a week ago I sent him what I thought was a heart felt email and I have had no response. We shared many good times over the years and I miss his company. One of the things I truly enjoy in life is being in relationships with all sorts of people. My friend came from a very diverse background. I used to tease him that his extended family would make a great sit-com. Our personalities couldn’t be more different. We found common ground in our love for the outdoors and a deep sense of the importance of family. I think the thing we shared the most was laughter. He is funny person and much more out going than I am. He also has a knack for getting people to fall for outrageous pranks. One of my favorites was witnessing him call a co-worker and in his very convincing radio voice inform this person they had just won a trip to some exotic land. Of course they fell for it “hook, line and sinker” I laughed so hard I cried. He was always quick to let his victims in on the joke and he was never mean. I think I only ever got him once and he seemed to have me “on the line” all the time. I came back from vacation once to find my voice mail box with about 200 messages from Elvis, Bugs Bunny and every other character he could think of. I have many memories like this and I’m uncomfortable that it might be over. I’ve always thought of friendships as a partnership and I can’t help wondering what I could have done differently. Or what is it about me that has kept him from reaching out? I have always been open about my faith and I suspect judgment may be an obstacle. The irony is if I am true to my faith the only thing he should expect from me is grace. My friend is also extremely good at reading people and I feel he knows me pretty well. I can’t help but wonder about his viewpoint of how he thinks I see him. At the moment I am experiencing feelings of loss and failure. In the end I need to have faith that as long as we are breathing there is a chance to find what has been lost.