The Miraculous Yoke

THE BOOK OF LIFE.........It is and always has been my belief, that we each have one.

However, it is not ours to read until it is ready to be closed and as my children once said, “Put into our permanent record.”

I had forgotten about mine until earlier this week when Joan, my forever friend, reminded me.

She is incredible with her pinpoint perception of everything I send to her for evaluation. Being so loyal, she always answers without delay.

Despite sharing our early years before marriage (to two Arthurs) in the same tenement on 58th Street, the rest of our lives separated us geographically. There have innumerable anticipated get togethers, which for one reason or another, never reached reality.

Yet the miraculous yoke of friendship has only grown stronger.

I don’t know what I contribute to the relationship, but I am utterly dependent on her common sense and logic. I tend to flutter sometimes on flights of frivolity; then Joan brings me instantly down to earth before I crash in a free fall.

She did that the year I was 15 and she was 16. We shared a blind date arranged by Jim, her older brother. He had recently enlisted in the Navy and brought two buddies home to visit the famed NYC. I am 5’8”; Harry, his young friend and my escort, was barely 5’. Obviously, I had grown during the year Jim was away.

Joan took me aside and said, “You will never see him again. Make him remember an wonderful night in the big city with a very nice girl.” And so we did, and I do hope he might remember a summer evening at the Paramount theatre followed by a shared hot fudge ice cream Sunday at the memorable Times Square Howard Johnson’s.

Yesterday my email contact, of course, wasn’t about a blind date, but another social quandary, and yes, Joan’s unflappable logic helped solve it.

However, it also introduced the topic of The Book of LIfe, and I began to wonder if I had read mine, or Joan, hers; would we have coped differently with all the unseen tomorrows.

Would we have made different choices or possibly, demands on those we loved? Would we have been nicer, kinder or in my case, more aggressive.

I doubt it. I think the book written for each one of us merely records who we are, and what we have tried to be during our assigned gift of time. I’m glad I didn’t even peek into mine. The happiness recorded would have consumed me like a luxurious down quilt wrapping me tightly, but then the chapters of loss would have brought me to my knees.

And of course, we will never know or at least not in time for any consequence. However, I am totally convinced that our books, Joan’s and mine, are situated somewhere next to each other, and sometimes mine moves ever so slightly just to lean a little bit against hers.