Twenty-Five Years

Twenty-five years are like a morning gone in seconds. And yet, there are indelible traces; in 1987 I wrote this, but in 2007 I wrote this. In the first, I was sure of what I was writing when I was writing it; now, I am quite sure I didn't know what I was writing about, and the words seem weak. In the second, I wasn't so sure about the writing, but I was far more sure of what I was writing about, and I think the lines are stronger for that.

Yesterday, hearing at first hand about personal pain and sorrow, and the shaping of lives, I felt inadequate. My own burdens are lighter, spread out over time and now thinned by distance and the weakness of the mind's eye. But sometimes God does let you roll back the curtains of the theatre of memory, even though those revels are ended.

And there it is, the canteen with the creaky benches, the cracked cement floor, the noise and smell of breakfasts and lunches to be paid for and consumed. You see some details very clearly, and some not at all. The unicorn is still a unicorn, and that is a wonderful thing; the rugby lads are bankers and lawyers and teachers now, and who's to say what has been gained or lost?

Was it all worthwhile? Certainly not. Was some of it worth anything? Some of it was worth a lot, and very precious even, in its time and time thereafter. What we retrieved from the old ruins is what we have for now. There are old roses locked up in old rooms; old letters in old drawers — they fade and fall apart, and they blow away in the wind.

In the end, only a very few things abide. But friendship is one of those things that can brighten the pathway to that end, and I am glad for it.