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Rant & Rave
I still remember it as if it had all happened yesterday. Walking back to Trojan Hall under the sweltering summer sky, we ran into each other for what would be the first of many times at the University of Southern California. Friendship endures
over time, spaceI was scared and lonely that first week, but she offered her friendship at a time when I needed it the most. In that moment four years ago, she became someone I could trust with anything.
Now, standing with my classmates on the deck of a ship as it cruises around Manhattan, it feels like a million years have passed since my college graduation.
I gaze at the city from across the dark waters. From a distance, I see the grandeur of skyscrapers and a symphony of lights.
She's somewhere across the continent, and it seems to me that if I just close my eyes, I could speak to her from across this great distance, and she would hear my voice.
I feel that I am getting used to life in this city of 8 million people as I walk along the wet and grimy streets of Manhattan's East Village, the neon lights and worn posters fading from my consciousness almost as soon as I look at them. I see her face reflected in the shimmering pools on the rain-drenched streets, shining through the windows of every roaring subway train, and emblazoned on every digital screen in Times Square.
In the spring of my sophomore year at USC, I was discouraged and disheartened with the way my life was going, but she called me one Saturday night, just as she had promised. That's just her way; she consoles her friends when they are having a bad day. She is a giver of solace and healing. We talked for three hours about everything -- our friends, school, our days at Iolani.
"Do you feel more settled now?" she kindly asked me at the end of those three hours.
One summer night long ago, we sat down at a buffet dinner with the USC administrators in a hotel in Waikiki. As I sat there, talking with her and listening to the band play Hawaiian music, her smiling face glowed radiantly in the dim light. At that moment, I wondered how I could have such an amazing and beautiful friend, and how I could be so blessed to know her.
I sit in the stands of Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankee game. It's not the game that interests me so much as the stadium itself.
Staring at the giant Yankee insignia painted in white behind home plate, I think to myself that this is the field of dreams. Suddenly, the days of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra are alive again, in brilliant colors. I visualize Babe Ruth, donning the Yankee uniform for the last time, a dying man standing humbly before the crowd. I hear the farewell speech of Lou Gehrig: "I consider myself to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
That night, I sit down and compose a message on a New York post card. Every experience -- every lunch, dinner, phone call, email, and random meeting we ever had -- lives to this day. I write, "I just wanted to let you know that I've been thinking of you."
As sleep creeps over me, the visions of the day when I will see her again dance gracefully in my head.
Todd China is a 1996 graduate of Iolani School, 2000 graduate of the University of Southern California and first-year medical student at New York University. Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
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