Untold Stories: Short List

I am wondering right now how you will feel the very second you see the title of this....

Are you excited knowing you're about to read something intended for you?  Are you nervous?  Or will you simply just shrug your shoulders and prepare yourself to tell me in the most humblest of ways, that you're simply ordinary?

It is now two years later since the first time I wrote an Untold Story for you.  Truth be told, it has just been ME talking about ME, as WE all do, in hopes YOU know that once upon a time, YOU impacted ME more than YOU ever knew. 


Every one of us has a short list of people who have impacted us more than anyone else we've encountered between the day we were born until our final breath.  For some, that list will include an old school teacher or a pastor or a neighbor or just a friend.  That short list will always include at least one person who came into our lives at the perfect moment and then in a blink of an eye, was gone.

Life is lightening quick.  If we leave this planet and find ourselves on just one person's short list, that is a life well lived.  You are on my short list and that is why these Untold Stories began two years ago. 

We rarely get an opportunity to rewind the clock and tell those who disappeared from our lives as quickly as they entered it, what they meant to us then.  I was afforded this moment when I found you in this new world we call the internet.


Last time I ever heard your voice, I was laying on a stranger's bed with a cordless phone to my ear.  I was a little drunk but it was necessary to calm those butterflies I had when you spoke.  Funny thing is I am still nervous to talk to you even though, we just infrequently send messages to each other on Facebook and my feelings for you have long dissipated.  I suppose when anybody is elevated to our personal short list, it's expected that a sense of awe will overcome us.  That short list will never include somebody ordinary.

And ordinary, you are not nor ever were.

I still remember your phone number including the area code. Impressive, maybe but that's a reflection of you and not my long term memory skills.

When we hung up, I had a feeling that was it... you were now gone from my life for good.  I figured I would spend the coming years or decades longing for you and wondering what if... I suppose on a few drunken nights, I did just that.  But truth be told, it was rare.

I will tell you what I wondered all those years after our last phone call... I wondered if you were happy.  I hoped you had found a good man.  Started a family of your own.  I hoped you escaped wasting years as I did just having "fun".  I wondered if you had a dog.  I thought of your sister and parents.  I was curious what movies you liked, what music you listened to.  I often prayed that loneliness would never catch you in her desperate grasp.  I thought of you with nothing but pure hopes and dreams for you. 

The burden of being on one's short list is we never disappoint as if it's possible.  That short list contains names that are forever protected by a wall of absolution. 

We all have a short list but as we grow older, we rarely get to revisit those names without mentioning them in past tense.  I am one of the fortunate ones who is afforded this platform and your ears to remind you of your significance in my life even though, that significance was cemented decades ago.

I still think of you with big bangs and a denim skirt but now surrounded by a loving family with all the blessings you have always deserved. 

Being on my short list and being able to tell you this now is my blessing.


I've got so many stories I will never get to share with you and I am sure you've got plenty more for me.