A Belated Reunion

My favorite stories revolve around friendship. It's quite possibly the one true thing that rises above all other things in life that make life worth living. Beyond art, poetry, money, perhaps even greater than good health, the first and greatest joy I believe we really share as a species is human connection. I've been blessed to have been gifted with some of the best friends one can have, and also to live in a time where it's easier to stay in contact than ever before, especially when it wasn't that long ago that we had to rely on the chaotic world of good old-fashioned mail.

My wife, Ira, came to me some time ago with an intriguing request: to help her find her Grandfather's long-lost friend.

Her Grandfather, Vladimir, had once been stationed in Georgia back when it was under the umbrella of the soviet union. During his time here, he made a dear friend named Jumber. The two spent a great deal of time together in that period, and Jumber took Vladimir around the country, introducing him to his family in the country, and undoubtedly treated him to a large quantity of homemade wine and excellent Georgian food.

Once their service was up, they promised to stay in touch, writing each other letters, until one day a letter was sent with a new return address, which wouldn't have been a problem, but the letter was also water-damaged, and half of the address was missing.

Time passed on, but unfortunately, the importance of their reunion was not realized until Vladimir's health began to deteriorate. However, before his passing, he made a request to his son, Sergei, to find him.

During a visit, Sergei brought the letters to Ira, hoping she would know someone who could help discover the whereabouts of Jumber. I myself had no idea, but over dinner with our friends Saba and Doduna, Sergei brought up the story and the importance of finding this Jumbert character. Doduna responded with a great deal of confidence and quickly made plans with Ira to do all they could to track him down, or at the very least find a surviving member of the family.

As it turns out, decoding a smudged address is much easier when you are a local to the area and even better when you have a work friend who remembers all the old soviet era street names. They managed to triangulate the most likely location based on the fact that he had been a service member. Housing was provided for veterans in the Varketili district, which made it highly probable that this would be where he would have moved. Shortly after Doduna found the address, she and Ira embarked on a mission across the river to Varketili. Oddly, the part of the address that was undamaged was the apartment number, but when they arrived, no one was home.

Figuring that there must surely be someone in the building who knew the man or someone in his family, they began walking floor to floor, knocking on doors to ask the other residents. While the first several attempts yielded no results, the women who answered were also intrigued by the story and trapsed along the stairwell. Eventually, a door opened to reveal someone who did, in fact, know that he had once lived in that apartment, but he had since moved out; his daughter now lived there. The woman gave Ira and Doduna a phone number to get in touch with his daughter.

It seemed like the mystery had been completely solved, but when the two ladies finally got in touch with Jumber's wife, they learned that his health was not in the best of shape and he wouldn't be able to meet with anyone for a while.

Several months passed. It was feeling a bit bleak. With no word on when he could meet, everyone began to assume that perhaps he was too old now. It seemed unlikely that he wouldn't have an interest in reconnecting with the family, but possibly his wife had some suspicions about these people she had never heard of, who suddenly wanted to talk to her husband. Either way, it was disappointing to be so close yet unable to complete the adventure.

Ira's parents, Sergei and Oksana, planned another trip to Tbilisi. It was at this time that Jumber's wife agreed to set up a dinner for everyone to meet. It was becoming very clear that she was a fair bit younger than he and was essentially taking care of things at this point.

A few days after Sergei and Oksana arrived, we made the drive to Jumbert's new apartment. We didn't talk much on the way. It was abundantly clear that this could be very awkward. The man could have dementia now; perhaps things had ended on bad terms, and Vlad had forgotten about this later in life. A bunch of thoughts raced around, but all was forgotten the minute we crossed the threshold into the apartment. Jumber, sharp as a tack, gave a warm welcome to everyone and hugs all around. He invited us to sit down, and his daughter brought us coffee while the food was being prepared. Sergei and Jumber looked through the photographs that Sergei had saved on his phone of Vladimir.

He chuckled at the older pictures. Some of them were from the times in Georgia, but there were more recent images as well.

"My God," exclaimed Jumber. "He got so old."

It dawned on me that this man's memories of his friend were from when they were both quite young. They never got to see what they looked like as old men.

We moved to the dining room table, where wine was poured, and Junber began a toast to the families. He also announced that, due to his recent health scare, he would be taking it easy with the drinking. Which he either forgot about as the meal progressed, or he must have been one hell of a tank in his prime, because I was having difficulty keeping up: all of us were. And while I couldn't understand a word from the toasts, as it was in Russian so Ira's family could understand, I was well aware of the light in his eyes when he raised his glass again and again, and I could see Sergei's reaction to his words. That's about all I needed to know. A friend of mine once said to me at a party here in Georgia, Sometimes it's better when you don't understand the words. Sometimes the most true thing is what you see in others and how they respond. I'd like to add the classic line to that, that we all laugh and smile in the same language.

Stories like these can only happen when something goes wrong, when a simple smudge mark can separate two people, and while it makes for a good story, it still fills my heart with pain that you can just lose someone you care about over something so small. But that's why it's so important for it to be a story, because while Ira's Grandfather and Junbert were never able to meet in person again, their children were able to, and another generation will share good wine together, and new friendships and beautiful memories are born.

It's moments like these that I find myself thinking of my Grandfather, Bill, also a veteran, who truly held his friends close to him to the day he departed. A man who worked with a friend and neighbor to set up a sister city in Germany with our small town in Ohio. This connection, in turn, brought people together. They traveled to visit one another in both places, Richfield, Ohio, and Volfach, Germany. My Grandfather made a few trips to Germany over the years to keep these connections. To him and his friend, it was a shared belief that even such a simple thing as bringing two very small towns together could, in fact, have a very big impact on the world.

My grandfather, Bill, left, and his friend and neighbor, Floyd Ramp

My Grandfather said something to the effect of "just maybe before we get so hot headed and point guns and bombs in the direction of others, that we may first remember the names of our friends in those places." I'm not naïve enough to believe that we will ever have world peace, and I don't think he was either, but I do know that if we thought a bit more like this, it certainly wouldn't hurt.