Small reminders of lost friends

It’s curious how little things can be heavily loaded with memories.

For instance, back in 1964, my family was camping in Italy, on our way home from a holiday in what was then Yugoslavia, to our home, at that time in Rome. I’ve already described the arrival in the same campsite of an English family, travelling in a tiny Minivan, two adults, two young children and one baby, all of them hot and tired. My parents offered them a cup of tea and a friendship was born that has lasted till today.

Well, it’s lasted with Hazel, the mother of the children, and the children themselves. It would have lasted with Michael, the father of the children, but he died a few years ago. He certainly lives on in my memory, however, and in particular whenever I make ice cubes.

Michael during a beach visit with us in Italy

After that first meeting on the campsite, our new friends came to visit us in Rome. And at one point during their stay, I was putting water in an ice tray and decided, with all the superiority of an eleven-year old, to explain that I wasn’t filling it up entirely because water expands on freezing.

As I was providing that explanation, so helpful to a research scientist, I managed to spill some of the water.

“Ah,” said Michael, “and now you’re demonstrating that water always finds its own level, right?”

I still spill the water sometimes, but I always think of Michael when I do.

Alasdhair, my school contemporary

My oldest friend in my generation was Alasdhair. I met him at school when we were both thirteen. We lived together, with a bunch of other students, in a chaotic shared house at university. Later, our paths parted somewhat – having the Atlantic between us will do that to a friendship – but we never lost contact with each other until his death nearly four years ago. At a ridiculously early age.

I think of him whenever I’m washing up. There was an occasion when his mother had taken the two of us away, when we were fourteen or fifteen, for a few days, and had set us up to washing the plates and cutlery one evening. I was washing, he was drying.

“That doesn’t look quite clean,” she pointed out about one of the plates.

“No problem,” said Alasdhair, wiping it with a tea towel, “a good drier-upper will get what a good washer-upper misses.”

The memory makes me try harder to make sure things are properly clean. Or to dry what I wash, and correct any bits I missed.

Sometimes when I’m washing up, I’ll be cleaning a skillet. That reminds me of the dearest friend I’ve had without ever meeting him. His name was Bob and he lived in Kansas and we met online, through Facebook, though I can’t for the life of me remember how. For several years, we regularly exchanged messages, jokes or advice.

Bob, the best friend I never met

One of his pieces of advice, shared with Danielle who also became his friend, was on the use of a skillet. The beauty of that instrument, you see, is that because it has a metal handle it can be put in an oven, though it looks like frying pan. Danielle bought one after that discussion and has become an expert in his use, as she always does with anything to do with cooking, as with so much else.

So from time to time I find a skillet to wash up and it brings up gentle memories of a kind and excellent man. It’s a lasting regret that we were never able to act on our plans to meet, in the US or in Europe, before he too died far too young, five years ago.

It’s a pleasure that such simple acts can bring good friends to mind. They’re poignant moments, of course. But welcome too.