Last week the DMV enjoyed unseasonably mild weather,
including some 80° days.
Call me crazy but this certainly isn’t the March Lion I’m
accustomed to.
It was against this backdrop that I decided to take an hour
or two to venture out to the bookstore and write Alli’s Two Cents. The Muse had graciously stopped by earlier so I
thought I’d put the finishing touches on her musings while sitting at an
outside table soaking up the sun and enjoying WiFi.
I ran into a friend who was also meeting a friend so a bit
of my time was co-opted. But I wasn’t mad. I’ve come to see life’s
serendipitous moments like these as blessings and just take them in stride.
Before I knew it, though, it was getting late (still getting
used to Daylight Savings Time) and I needed to get some food home for dinner. As
I walked up the steps to the house, I juggled the mail along with all my other
stuff – takeout, laptop, purse, etc. It was then that I noticed a letter with
an Oklahoma return address that made me smile.
First of all, it’s not often that we get handwritten notes
and letters these days so that was enough to make my eyes twinkle. But when I
noticed who it was from, I got really excited!
You see, I have been getting letters from this return
address since 1975 when I was about 10 years old in the fifth grade.
It was about that time that me and a little girl named Patty
Urbina (later Moakley) would serendipitously write in to a television show
called Big Blue Marble requesting a
pen pal.
Big Blue Marble was
one of those educational television shows that I wish I could say my Mom the
Teacher made me watch. My dorky self, however, actually liked it. Every week the show took us on a journey to what
seemed like an exotic, foreign land where we would see how other children lived
and learn about other cultures. In this way, we would see that what felt like a
huge planet was merely a “big blue marble” when viewed from outer space and we
are all more alike than different.
Another way they encouraged us to learn about other cultures
was to write in for a pen pal so we could get to know one another on an
individual basis.
Y’all know that had me all over it! J
Imagine my surprise, however, when my cultural match arrived
from….Watonga, Oklahoma! I was like, “Oklahoma?! That’s not exotic! That’s the
United States!”
Little did I know that this would spawn a 35 year friendship
that included pages and pages of notebook paper filled with talk about school,
boys, and teenage angst that eventually gave way to college, marriage, and
children. I still have boxes of letters, pictures, and t-shirts that say we are
true sisters, all without ever laying eyes on each other.
That is until a serendipitous encounter in Oklahoma back in
1992 while I was attending a conference as an exhibitor for an education
foundation.
Initially, the trip seemed less than stellar – it was in
October during Oktoberfest and I was the only African American within a 100
mile radius. On the cab ride from the airport, we drove past Oral Roberts
University with these ginormous metal praying hands out in front and fields
filled with actual bales of hay. The icing on the cake was that the colleague I
was travelling with wanted to go line dancing at a country bar we spotted on
our way in. I told her under no certain terms that I would NOT be going line
dancing in anybody’s country bar in anybody’s No Man’s Land/No Black People,
Oklahoma.
Oddly enough, the keynote speaker at this conference was Alex
Haley. I “just so happened” to have just finished re-reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and
couldn’t believe I was in the same hotel with an absolute living legend! I
looked up during breakfast the next day and there he was at the table next to
mine! I got stage fright, though, and didn’t introduce myself. I wish I had,
however, because he would make his transition just a few short months later.
Serendipity.
Anyway, during our first day exhibiting, an attendee walked
past my booth with a badge that said she was from Patty’s hometown of Watonga.
I greeted her with an exuberant smile and mentioned that I had a pen pal from
Watonga and she asked me her name. When I told her, she replied, “Oh, honey, I
know her Mama. I’ll call her during our next break.” (Cell phones were rare in
those days!).
The next morning Patty and her husband Bill drove two hours
just to have breakfast with me! To them, no distance was too far and no time
too short if it meant we got to meet face-to-face after what had been a mere 18
years of writing!
So fast forward to last week when I saw the letter from Patty’s
mom and I got really excited! Maybe, I thought, they’re planning some kind of
surprise celebration for her and want to give me plenty of time to plan to
attend. After all these years, we’ll get to see each other again and she’ll get
to meet Drew!
So me and my juggling scurry in the door, get things
settled, and I open the letter. Out tumbled a newspaper clipping with her
picture and a note from her mother that began, “It breaks my heart to tell you
this but I know I must…”
Even though I didn’t have my very necessary 1.50 readers on,
I knew something wasn’t right.
It seems that my dear pen pal died suddenly in February even
though, her mother assured me, “The doctors really did all they could…”
I did find my readers and the news was right there in black
and white but somehow, through my tears, it just didn’t seem to compute.
Still hasn’t.
As I sit here a week later, my eyes still tear up as I think
about how miraculously serendipitous it was that Patty and I crossed paths all
those years ago and that we got to meet that one time. I also think it is
incredibly generous and gracious of God to bless us with such a richly woven
tapestry of friendship and for that I am so very grateful.
Just yesterday I went to grab a miscellaneous stack of
papers (my hand to God) and I found the last letter Patty wrote to me in
November 2011. I knew we had written recently but it was just one of those
reminders that catch your breath. In it she tried to, “catch me up,” as she put
it because, alas, our days of writing pages and pages have not survived grown
up, hectic life. But she closed noting that
she couldn’t believe that we had been writing each other for over 30 years and,
“I am so blessed that you continue to share your life with me. You will forever
be in my heart and I love you, sis!”
I would like to take this space to honor her memory and
share my love and prayers with her husband, mother, and beautiful son.
I wish for all of you rich, loving friendships and relationships
that you can cherish even though it hurts when they change.
And remain aware and alert - you never know when serendipity
will stop on over, sit on your shoulder, and bless you beyond your wildest
imaginings.