An Old Friend Lost and Found
Brian, one of my Ex-s, told me that, he recently had a reunion with a few of his college classmates. During the gathering, Will, one of his buddies, asked about me.
Oh, Will, did he really ask about me? I was very surprised.
“What did he say?” I was a bit nervous.
“He said he had always thought highly about you.” Brian answered.
Really? It was hard to believe what I heard.
Will used to be a very special friend of mine, and I thought I had lost him for good.
Will was the one who first recommended The Horse Whisperer to me many years ago. He was also the one who suggested that I should watch Good Will Hunting.
I knew him long before I actually met him.
Will came to the US with a full scholarship right after finishing his undergraduate from a top university in China. Brian told me that Will married a girl from his hometown, a beautiful eastern city in China, before going to the U.S. Some relative of Will introduced the girl to him. The girl held only a community college degree, but she had relatives living oversea. At that time, a crazy nationwide policy just came out stating that, except for sent by the government, Chinese were not allowed to go study abroad unless they had direct or indirect relatives oversea.
She couldn’t go to the U.S. on her own, and he couldn’t go to the U.S. without her oversea relatives. They didn’t date too long before getting married. Soon after, Will left China and his newly wedded wife joined him in the U.S. as a F-2 a few months later.
Will left many GRE related books for Brian and encourage him also pursuing education abroad. On the cover page of one book, I found Will’s handwriting: “Where there is a will, there is a way.”
Will contacted Brian regularly. E-mail was not available back then. Will wrote letters to Brian periodically. Once a while, Will also attached some of his pictures. Brian shared all these letters with me. I was often impressed and moved by his beautiful writing and deep thoughts behind the words. Although I had never talked to or met with him then, I already considered him as a very good friend.
TBC
