Reach out and touch

Those who know me know that I am usually a relatively quiet person.

One of my favorite sayings is, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!”

I am jumping into the BLOG subculture at the risk of removing all doubt.

As I approach the begin my 62nd year (what an old fart!!), I cannot help but look back over the years and think of those who have touched my life and whose lives I have touched in return.

Up until last December, apart from family members, I could count those I was still in touch with on the fingers of one hand.

Even many family members outside of my immediate family have gone “missing. ”

I have had a sudden flood of reconnections with people from my past during the last few months.

These efforts resulted in the mending of at least one fence thought to have been destroyed beyond repair.

In April of 2008, I reconnected with a friend I had not heard from in 44years.

What a rush that was.

During the Christmas holidays, I attempted to reconnect with that friend only to find out that he was no longer at the number I had listed for him

I took a long shot and attempted to “Google” him (what the heck, it works on TV, right?).

I came across a newspaper article detailing an incident in June on a Connecticut highway to my surprise and dismay.

The accident involved two vehicles colliding at high speed, resulting in severe injuries for the lead car’s driver.

The description of the driver sustaining the injuries matched my friend’s description.

The accident left him in critical condition.

I tried the “Google” thing again, in desperation, this time on his siblings (Hey, it worked once. Right?).

Much to my surprise, I got a hit on both his brother and sister, pointing me to classmates.com.

Great, I thought, I already had a membership to that site.

That was how the friend initially contacted me. I reached out to the sister on classmates.com.

A few days later, she responded to my query.

She confirmed the article had been written about her brother and affirmed that he had survived the accident.

Then, after a few moments of conversation, she paused and asked, “Is this Rudy?”

To which I responded, “Yes.”
“Oh my God,” she said, “I had such a crush on you.”

And that is the story of how Rudy reconnected with the Pina family.

The point I am trying to make in this rambling BLOG is that too often in our busy lives, and we allow ourselves to fall out of touch with those who have impacted our lives.

I have committed myself to try harder to “reach out and touch” those who have touched me in the past. I encourage you all to take the time and expend the effort to do the same.

The possible rewards are very likely to exceed the efforts expended.

Updated Nov 1, 2020, 6:30 PM