The passing of a friend. 40 years ago a good man rescued me from destructive loneliness. Alan Barker died this week, and I wanted to post this excerpt from Finding the Lost Freshman in his honor. I was Lost Like many young people, I got lost my freshman year of college when my parents moved overseas. We had moved out of my “high school” neighborhood immediately after graduation. I was in a new neighborhood in a new role as property manager, managing my parents’ home as a rental. I had a regular job. While I was charged with maintaining their large new home, I was unable to even collect rent from the roommates my parents had signed up to rent the home. I was stunned with the work demands of college. I was working graveyard shift at a motel. My girlfriend dumped me. My friends were leaving town for other opportunities. My parents were five thousand miles away. I was overwhelmed with fear, uncertainty, false confidence and loneliness. One night an older family friend from our old neighborhood stopped by. Dr. Alan Barker was a friend of my parents, a local heart surgeon who, I assumed, had better things to do than check on me. He asked how I was doing and I lied. I hid from the truth with a speech about how well I was doing with my work, my freshman studies, and my wonderful friends. Physicians are generally hyper observant. He certainly was. After a few minutes of listening to my Blah, Blah, Blah denial he interrupted me, looked at me directly and said, “It’s not working, is it Scott?” I paused. He knew exactly what I was thinking. He knew I was missing almost everything important. He knew that I was covering up the real truth. There was a long silence with my head down then I looked him in the eye, and cried like a baby. I don’t remember much about what happened after that, but a few weeks later I moved into his home with his family where I stayed for six months. To this day I think of his family as my second family.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 07:49:56 +0000
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