By Andrew Beck
When I went down to Cal Poly my contact with friends in San Jose became somewhat limited. Correy fell into this category, but he was also one of those types of people where just seeing him quickly closed whatever distance had grown in the absence of constant communication.
I saw Correy for the first time in many months back in February of 2009 over at one of the semester's first scuba diving classes at West Valley. It was good to see so many familiar faces in the instructors and some old friends who were assisting in the class. Correy walked over with a familiar "flop-flop-flop" sandal sound and offered a firm handshake and a smile framed by 3-day stubble. We chatted a bit and reminisced about our days in that same pool.
After about ten minutes of standing beside the pool and talking we brought up the status of relationships we were in. I had a long relationship end 4 months before in October, and although a significant period of time had passed since it had ended, it still haunted me in many ways. I had given myself a limited period of time to talk about it with friends and family, but after that period passed I no longer felt comfortable airing out my feelings and decided to move on with it silently. I vaguely brought it up the relationship to him as he had also known my ex for some time, and we joked about the whole thing for a while.
Correy talked about a recent relationship of his had ended as well, and we talked about the details of that and laughed some more. Neither of us had seen each other in a while, and neither of us seem inclined to bringing up anything serious.
That was until Correy surprised me. We both got quiet after a laugh and stared out at the steam rising off the heated pool, both of us with our hands in our pockets. I saw him give a faint smile out of the corner of my eye. "It hurts, doesn't it," he said quietly and then looked over to lock eyes with me. I stared back at him, quiet for a moment, and then admitted, "Yeah. Yeah, it does." I remember breathing deeply and then both of us launched into a lengthy conversation about how each of us were doing and what had happened for us both.
I distinctly remember that being the first point that I felt I was beginning to heal. That conversation beside the pool, the frankness about how it could all still haunt and hurt coming from someone else who felt the same thing, especially from someone who I don't recall opening up that much during our friendship, I remember it all. He was a quiet man but there was never any doubt that there was a abundance of deep thought going on behind that head of his, and it really showed that night. It was a rare moment of openness, honesty, and empathy that in hindsight I believe I desperately needed at the time.
