Ode to a Friendship

As I lay awake this morning at 3:30 am—yes, again—I started wondering what causes two people, who have been friends for decades, to drift apart.

Tucson, January 1983: I had just arrived home on a Friday evening after stopping to pick up some groceries after work and, looking to the east, saw the most beautiful full moon I had ever seen rising over the Rincon Mountains. I had originally intended on staying in that night, but a little voice popped into my head that kept saying, "You really need to go out tonight."

For once, I heeded that little voice (because it would not let up) and later that night, I met Lee and Floyd, two very different men who ended up entering my life and accompanying me on this strange journey far longer than I think any of us had ever anticipated.

I will save Floyd's story for another time.

I had been introduced to Lee a few weeks before that night by a mutual friend, but we really didn't click. (To be honest, I think I just blew him off; I was no doubt in hot pursuit of some piece of ass and didn't want the distraction. I could be quite a prick back then.) Anyhow, I don't remember what caused us to gravitate to each other that night, but we struck up a conversation. The one thing that still sticks with me is that one of the first things he said was, "I didn't think you liked me."

Ouch.

I apologized, and clarified that no, I didn't dislike him at all. Our conversation sort of stumbled along after that until I happened to mention something about my first (life) teacher, and Lee's interest immediately picked up. We soon discovered that we were both on a spiritual journey of exploration, and became so engrossed in our conversation that we ended up closing the bar. While there was no physical attraction, the next night we had dinner and ended up back at my place—where we continued the previous night's conversation until nearly 4 am. And thus a friendship was born.

Lee arrived at a time in my life when Dennis, my first partner, and I had been on an extended separation. After Dennis's return to Tucson from Dallas in June of that year, I came to think of us as The Three Musketeers. When Dennis and I did finally split for good (remaining best friends until his death in 1991), and I got together with Bernie, my second partner, we became the Four Musketeers.

Lee was part of our grand migration to San Francisco.

While he remained several years, San Francisco never really agreed with Lee, and after nearly a year in Denver, I can now finally understand where he was coming from. Some places just don't fit, and for Lee, San Francisco was one of those places. He returned to Tucson in the early 90s.

Ten years later, after I'd returned to Phoenix, Lee stood by me through my cancer treatments, driving up every week to provide welcome relaxation assistance by way of some Reiki sessions.

But then something happened. Late one night, after one of our final sessions, his car broke down in the dark between Phoenix and Tucson and he was stranded by the side of the road until a good samaritan happened by with a cell phone and was able to call for a tow.

I think this spooked him to the bone, because since that happened in late 2003, I was unable to get him to ever come north again.

Still, we would get together whenever I went south (which was happening pretty regularly for a while), and things were as good as ever between us.

I should note that Lee is not the big tech nerd that I am. He has a computer, and for a while we were emailing back and forth pretty regularly. But he started using it primarily for online gaming, and soon my emails were going unanswered.  I asked him about this and he explained that there was now so much spam in his inbox that he didn't even bother checking it any more.

Okay. A hundred different ways around that immediately sprang to mind, but from his tone I could tell any solution to this was going to be more trouble that it was worth to him.

Lee doesn't have a FaceBook account. He doesn't Tweet. Hell, as far as I know the man still doesn't even have a cell phone.

The last time we spoke—about 18 months ago—everything was fine. All the old connections came flooding back and he wished Ben and I well on our upcoming adventure to Colorado. Since that time I've called and left messages on his answering machine, but they haven't been returned. My last ditch effort at staying in touch has been snail mail. I've sent a couple letters since we've been in Denver, but still I've heard nothing back from him.

I know he's still alive. Bernie certainly would've let me know if something had happened to our dear friend, so I'm at a loss.

I have no way of knowing if he ever reads my blog, but did I happen to post something that so annoyed him that he's cut me off after all this time? Did my relatively newfound Atheism betray all the years of our spiritual questioning?

I just don't know.

Maybe it's just one of those questions in life that will never be answered.