Keeping Up With the People in My Life by Marilyn Levinson

Like most people, I keep up with some old friends and with relatives I'm close to. I'm still in contact with a friend from elementary school days, and I Zoom every month with three of my closest college friends. Recently, I've found myself thinking about some people with whom I haven't been in touch, who have been important to me at different times of my life. Texting and emailing make communicating easier than sending a letter or even making a phone call. However, time is always limited and somehow I've found it's easier to call someone I was with the previous weekend than to call someone I hadn't spoken to in months if not a year or two.

This past year, several people I know have died. As we grow older, so do our friends and colleagues. I wondered if any of my friends had died without my having known. And so I made a list of the people with whom I wanted to reconnect. I planned to call someone on the list every three or four days.

I began contacting the people in my life, perhaps not as frequently as I'd thought I would. Alas, I discovered one had died. Another informed me that her husband had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. But others were, in relatively good health, and we enjoyed a long conversation as we caught up on each other's life.

At the end of every phone call, we said we'd stay in touch. Easy to say, but not always easy to do as once again the everyday and familiar takes over and making phone calls to old friends requires time I don't always have. But I will try.