MEMOIR2

FINDING A LONG LOST FRIEND

"MAIS ONEIL, TU PENSES VRAIMENT QUE RICHARD TE RECONNAITRA APRES TOUTE CES ANNEES."

"JE NE SAIS PAS MAMAN MAIS JE PENSE QUE CA VAUT LA PEINE D'ESSAYER."

Richard Blanc was my best friend when I used to live in France. We had so much fun together that it's so hard for me to forget everything we did. From chasing girls to sneaking in the movie theater when we had no money , we had fun from dawn to dusk. Richard is white , I am black and yet we got along very well. There was no sign of racism, jealousy, interest and hate in our friendship. We never took advantage of each other and never made fun of each other's race. We rarely fight and stood there for each other.

One day my parents, my brother and left France for good. I thought to myself that I'll probably call him when I get to New york. However, when I got New York, I realized that I had lost his phone number. As a result, there was no way for me to communicate with him.

Five years later, I was on the internet and yahoo had this commercial about finding long lost friend. After I followed all the instructions I was able to find his number, and decided to call him. Sunday May 7th, I started dialing his number and I got scared.

"WHAT IF HE DOESN'T REMEMBER MY NAME?"

"WHAT IF HE HAS NO IDEA OF WHO I AM, I'LL BE A TOTAL FOOL."

The phone rang, he answered and we started talking.

"ALLO, RICHARD C'EST MOI ONEIL, EST-CE QUE TU ME RECONNAIS?"

"OUI, ONEIL JE TE RECONNAIS."

He remembered me. He rememembered my name. He remembered all the things we did together. My heart cried of happiness. We stayed on the phone for many hours talking about each other's past life. We talked about the dead past, the living present and the unborn future. It was so good.

Graduation is in few weeks, and I am now realizing that after four years I had no real friends in high school. I may have a lot of classmates but classmates are not friends. Throughout my high school years people used me, they were my friends only when they needed to borrow some kind of homeworks from me. I have been called annoying, big mouth, rich spoiled kid, there is even a girl who hates being in contact with me but is only my friend when she has no else around to talk to. As you can see, high school was the best of time and the worst of times and mostly the worst of time. The one only true friend that I have in this world is Richard.....