At my 20th high school reunion, a woman smiled at me with familiar affection. I felt awful that I didn’t immediately recognize her, as she clearly remembered me, and liked me. 

           When she identified herself, I exclaimed “Oh, of course, you cut your hair!” I immediately pictured her as a long-haired teenager, and positive memories of the science class we’d shared came flowing back to me in the form of brown locks. I could picture her on the carpet, a few feet away from me. I could feel that carpet myself, and smell that room of learning. 

           For it hadn’t just been a class: It had been a science-based community. Our teacher had cultivated something special—built from the blocks of her knowledge, her wisdom, her kindness, and our enthusiasm—and we were the result. The two of us then reminisced about the world’s best science class. 

           An hour later, I stood in front of the entire room. As one of the organizers, a dark honor had been assigned to me. I read the names of the three classmates who’d left us. We all breathed in silence for an awkward minute. 

           When the minute was up, I immediately went up to her, hugged her, and quietly asked her if I’d done them proud. “You were great,” she whispered in my ear.

           What’s funny is that my husband was there as my guest. There were classmates who’d attended our wedding. That is to say, there were several people in the room I was closer to than I was to her. Still, my instincts brought me to the science classmate I hadn’t seen since we’d graduated. We were truly reunited. Ours had been a biology class, not a chemistry class, but I imagined us in a covalent bond. 

           Our thirtieth reunion is coming up in a few years. I plan to help organize it, and I hope they’ll again allow me that honor, heavier now with the weight of eight names rather than three. I was very close to two of the deceased, a man I met our sophomore year, and a woman I’d known since first grade. I wrote her obituary myself, and I started a scholarship for him. 

           Our brilliant teacher has also died, around the time my son was conceived. Several other teachers are gone as well. Such is the burden of linear time.

           And I know that if my voice breaks as I read those names, so what? My science classmate will be waiting for me. It’s she I’ll walk to when the minute of silence has passed. It’s she who will touch me, for our bond remains strong and unassailed by corrosive forces. I look forward to that.

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