I didn’t catch her name. Nor recognize her voice. So when she asked if it was my birthday, I was sure it was a telemarketer.
It was only when the word “pen pal” sifted through the heavy New Jersey accent, that I put it all together.
My one and only pen pal from 50 years ago had called me Wednesday. She was a month off on the birthday.
I can’t remember how we got hooked up, but for several years Lydia of Milburn, N.J. and I kept up a faithful correspondence.
When I was 12, my parents took me to visit her as part of a trip we made as a family to the East Coast. Her modest home was one of thousands tightly stacked against each other in a suburban neighborhood 20 miles west of New York City.
Our parents gave us privacy for our encounter. We hung off swings in her back yard, as we stole glances at each other and made small talk. Before then, I’d never heard her voice and her thumb-sized school photos were all I had to go by. I felt as nervous as a mail-order bride.
But being young girls, the ice quickly thawed. I found Lydia warm and funny, if not a little bossy as the big sister.
I’d like to say that was the beginning of an even more beautiful friendship, but, oddly enough, it somehow signaled the end. Perhaps the fantasy of what each other was like in real life helped fuel the relationship. It’s not that we were disappointed, it’s just that, well, now we knew.
And until this week, I hadn’t thought of Lydia for years, though I always thought if I had had a second daughter that would be her name.
She called out of the blue, she said, because after 38 years she’d lost her husband to cancer and “I’m trying to piece my life back together.”
I could sense her fear.
“I’ve never lived alone,” she said.
“Both of my sons have invited me to live with them. What do you think?”
In two minutes we had time-traveled over 48 years of never talking to each other.
So of course I could only offer her stock advice.
“They say you should wait a year before making any big changes,” I said.
That seemed to resonate.
“I’d like to see what it would be like on my own,” she ventured.
After high school Lydia followed her family tradition and entered the Navy, where she met her husband. When he contracted cancer, she became his full-time caretaker.
Though the last few years had been difficult, they gave her a purpose.
Now, she feels rudderless.
When I said we should exchange emails, she hesitated.
“My husband took care of such affairs. I’m not sure I know how.”
To which I responded, “Well, it’s time you learned.”
Any day now, I’m expecting her name in my inbox.
Out-of-the-blue call rekindles memories
