I had to call

I had to call him. I was riding down the mountain on I-40, coming back from Asheville. I had just spent the night with my husband who was there on business. We had gone to dinner the night before, and I had spent the morning driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway. As close to heaven as you can get in North Carolina. Both of my parents' ashes are up on the Parkway,
spread there as they wished and against park regulations. I am always reminded of my youth when I am on the parkway, because we vacationed there quite often. So on the way back, I had a sudden feeling that I needed to call David.

David is an old friend of mine from way back when. He was my first real boyfriend. We muddled our way through our early and mid-teens together, and then went our seperate ways. Through high-school reunions and the fact that somehow we ended up in the same line of business, he and I have kept in touch on a very casual and infrequent level. My husband has met his wife. We have mutual friends in Wilmington, but we have walked very, very different paths in life.

He anwered the phone on the first ring. He told me he was glad to hear from me; that he didn't have a current phone number and hadn't been able to tell me how sorry he was about my Dad dying last summer. He didn't even know we had moved to Greensboro. We spent a good 20 minutes catching up on each other's spouses and children. Then he wanted to hear about me and my health. He had been concerned that things were not going well and did not know who to ask. He had no idea about the ups and downs of the last two and 1/2 years. I kept it short, but did let him know of my victories and miracles. We hung up and I burst into tears.

Why did I do that? It was not because I missed him, ever had any regrets about the different paths we took, and certainly not because of any "what if" kind of thing. I cried because I knew when he was talking to me on the phone, he was thinking of a different Kathy. Here was a person who knew me, but hadn't seen me in over four years, has never seen me with hair shorter than shoulder-length. He has never seen me overweight, with blotchy skin and non-existant eyebrows. Here was a person who was blissfully ignorant of what the girl on the other end of the line looked like. And I want him to stay that way. When he is talking to me from afar on the phone, I always want him to conjure up the picture of me as a young woman. Long hair,
tanned, bikini-clad, pert-breasted, tennis champ, no-cares girlfriend. Here was someone whose memory of me has not been as marred as everyone else who has watched the toll that
cancer has taken on me and my body.

I am proud that cancer has not altered my soul. I am proud that cancer has brought so much to the rich table that has become my life. I am grateful, so grateful, that this disease has drawn me so close to God, family, friends, and my girls. All these things are priceless and so, so enriching.
But for a short time on a Tuesday while I was driving down the mountain, I just had to call someone....anyone...who remembers me like I remembered me when I used to go up on the Parkway with my parents. Another person...not jaded.

Thankfully, God has a gentle reminder for me when moments like the moment on the 1-40 mountain hit me:

"Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See! I am doing a new thing." Isaiah 43:18,19a