Old age is like a great library filled with the memories of a life well lived. Through great friendships, great loves, great accomplishments, and great sorrows, we fill its shelves year after year. When we need comfort, our minds seem to know exactly where to look.
At four o’clock this morning, I woke up needing one of my usual nighttime trips to the bathroom. These days, three trips a night are fairly common. This particular morning brought a mildly painful reminder of the radiation treatments I received for cancer.
As I sat there, my mind suddenly pulled a book from the shelves of my life’s library.
It carried me back more than seventy years to San Mateo Junior College.
I had recently moved away from home and was beginning a new chapter of life. Everything was new—college, friends, surroundings, opportunities, and dreams. Life stretched before me like an open road.
One evening I met a young man while we were taking tickets at a college dance. We laughed and talked the entire evening. Before long, religion entered our conversation. He was Catholic, and I was seriously considering joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He asked me for a date.
I told him I wasn’t sure I should date someone who was not of my faith because I had watched my parents struggle with the challenges of a mixed-religion marriage. In those days, religion often played a much larger role in courtship than it does now.
He thought for a moment and said, “Well, couldn’t we at least be friends?”
I told him I didn’t know.
Then he pointed to a large tree on campus and said, “Tomorrow at two o’clock, I’ll be sitting under that tree. If you want to be my friend, meet me there.”
The next day I arrived before two and waited.
Soon he appeared, and we sat beneath that beautiful green tree with our backs against the trunk. We laughed, talked, shared dreams, and discussed our plans for the future. Before we knew it, the afternoon had slipped into evening.
That friendship grew into love.
Eventually we became engaged.
During that time, I helped him through the death of his mother and became close to his father and sister. They became almost like family to me. The engagement ring he gave me had belonged to his mother, which made it especially precious to him.
In the end, however, my religious convictions led me to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I ended the engagement.
His father later asked for the ring to be returned. I understood why. It had been his wife’s wedding ring, and it carried memories that belonged to the family. Returning it was painful, but it was the right thing to do.
Life moved forward.
I married a very different man, Glenn, whom I loved deeply. We built a wonderful life together, raised a family, and shared sixty-one years of marriage.
Years later, after the death of his wife, my former fiancé searched for me. Knowing only my married name and that I lived in Utah, he called every person he could find with that last name until he finally located me.
We talked on the phone and quickly discovered that the affection and respect we had once shared had never completely disappeared.
Yet I also knew that my loyalty belonged to my husband.
I told him that continuing our phone conversations did not feel fair to Glenn. He understood and suggested that we remain friends through email instead.
That friendship lasted for many years.
I encouraged him to remarry, and eventually he married a wonderful woman who had also lost a spouse. Together they traveled, enjoyed life, and built a happy marriage. Through emails, I became friends with both of them. His sister also reentered my life, and the friendship we had shared as young women continued.
When cancer eventually claimed his life, I found myself comforting his wife, his son, and his sister—just as I had once helped him through the loss of his mother many years earlier.
As I reflected on all of this in the middle of the night, I realized that the comfort I found was not simply in remembering a man I once loved.
It was the memory of a time when life was new, when possibilities seemed endless, and when I sat beneath a green tree with my whole future spread out before me.
Perhaps that is one of the gifts of old age.
We carry within us an entire library of memories.
When pain comes, whether physical or emotional, our minds sometimes know exactly which book to pull from the shelf.
This morning, my mind chose a green tree on a college campus, a carefree afternoon, and the beginning of a friendship that would touch many lives over the next seventy years.
And for a little while, that memory brought me comfort.
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