Letting Go

One night, I went to my high school reunion and ran into an old friend.  We used to sit at the same table in our 7th grade English/Reading class (my school was grades 7-12, hence why we were at our high school reunion ;-)).  To be honest, this friend and I mostly only talked during our English class and we never really hung out with each other outside of class.  But when we saw each other at our reunion, there was so much love.  We chatted for a brief second, and then we shook hands to say goodbye.  There were crowds of people around us, and we were actually in a night club (yes, our school used a club as a reunion spot, lol).  He walked past me, but for some reason, neither of us let go of each other’s hand. I never turned to face him, so I can only assume that both of us had our backs to each other. I imagine that his body was probably already lost in the crowd while he was still holding onto my hand.  We held on for what felt like minutes, but it was probably only a few seconds.  I felt everything in those seconds - but most importantly, it felt like we were both saying: here’s to the connection that we had before we let go and say goodbye.  And then, we dropped hands.  And that was our goodbye.  That was several years ago, and I haven’t seen him since.