When our family moved from Peru to Ecuador in 1961, there were new friends to make. I was about to start school in Quito Ecuador, entering my grade 8 year, then I met a future classmate who told me excitedly that there would soon be a contest.
It was a contest to recognize the shortest kid in the class. At the time, I was several inches shorter than five feet.
"It's either between you or Ted Marsh," he said.
I was not overly excited about the prospect of winning the contest, but I was certainly wanting to meet this guy named Ted. A few weeks later, when school began, we met, we stood back to back, and I won. I was half an inch shorter.
I then learned that the name was not Ted Marsh. It was Tidmarsh. Jim Tidmarsh. At this school, students were addressed by their surnames. I would become known as "Fast" and he was "Tidmarsh."
Tidmarsh and Fast became best buddies for three years, those formative years of grade 8, 9, and 10. At lunchtime -- I can still see him in my memory – he would sprint towards me, lunch bucket in hand and slide to a stop on the grass. There we ate our sandwiches and discussed the weighty matters of the world, politics, and the local news around the school. The Alliance school was for “missionary kids,” but it also enrolled students we referred to as 'the American colony', children from military families, government, and business, most of them also ex-patriots. We were from the MK community, but since I was Canadian, and he had British roots, we always had to navigate our way through the social order to assert our independent identities. Perhaps that's why we hung out together.
On Saturdays we hopped a bus and headed down to the airport to watch the jets come in and take off. Or we hiked up Pichincha with a sack lunch, climbing to 12,000 feet, above Quito. We once camped out on the side of the mountain in a pup tent, dug up potatoes and boiled them for supper.
After Grade 10, our lives went different directions, and we never saw each other again. Jim and I moved to the USA, but to opposite sides of the country. Over the years, I often thought of him and wondered if we might re-connect some day. Had he moved to England, his father's old home? What career did he choose? It was all a big question mark. And 1964 was a long time ago, more than half a lifetime.
Thanks to his sister-in-law, Beth Ann -- whom I met on facebook – last year, Jim and I began weekly phone conversations.
Re-kindled friendships usually begin by conversing around a shared history, comparing notes, memories. Slowly we began to piece together timelines, old relationships, and explore how our childhood had shaped us into who we are today. We began in the past, then moved into the present. Jim and I were only touching the surface, trying to catch up on a half century of absence, sharing what life had taught us.
There were also conversations about Subarus, motor homes, ways to find potable water, a bit of politics. There was also the usual banter about dealing with Covid, the nightmares of traffic in New Jersey, dealing with all sorts of bureaucracies. But the conversations would often drift back to our common history in Ecuador, being MKs in South America, the challenges of trying to fit into different cultures during high school years.
In the process, I learned more about his father and mother.
Dr. Tidmarsh, I learned, was an English gentleman born when Queen Victoria was still alive. He had an earned doctorate, and was more highly educated than most of the missionaries in Ecuador. Jim recounted how his father had come to Ecuador and worked on the Kichwa translation of the New Testament over many years -- two translations, in fact -- for in the ensuing years, the language had changed and a new translation of the Scripture was needed. He was also well read in the British authors of CS Lewis, and GK Chesterton. Jim recounted how his father's Victorian ways were not always understood by other American missionaries, and he was always quick to defend his father, fiercely proud of Dr. Tidmarsh's legacy.
I recounted to him a brief memory of meeting his father when I was about 13 years old. I had come to the Tidmarsh home to visit Jim, and Dr. Tidmarsh let me in the house to wait, since Jim was not available at the moment. I was an impulsive little guy, bursting with energy, and couldn't sit still, so I began to wander around my host's house. Dr. Tidmarsh said to me.
"Look Kenny, when I come to visit you at your house do I just run around it?"
I sheepishly said "no" and then properly sat down and waited quietly in the living room for my buddy to show up. It was a gentle and artful reprimand from a distinguished gentleman, Jim's father.
Jim chuckled when I told him that story.
That must have been our house near the bullring.
That I did not remember.
I am so grateful for the almost weekly phone conversations which we had last year. Jim would often respond to something I had said with "I got it!" I'm not sure if that's a New Jersey expression or not, but it always made me think that we had connected at some level.
We were hoping to visit in person some day, some time in the future, likely in Alberta. Jim planned to acquire an RV so he could travel, and we were looking forward to a personal visit where he could park his vehicle on the acreage and we could spend some quality time together. I often shared with him how my own wife, Carolyn, had grown up with a similar background as his, a child of a Plymouth Brethren missionary living in another country. Every time we said goodbye on the phone he would always close with:
"Say hello to Carolyn for me, she sounds like a wonderful lady."
I always did pass on those greetings, and I appreciated the warmth, the thoughtfulness for the other, evidenced in this customary goodbye after our conversation. Both of us were looking forward to the next phone visit, and anticipating that Alberta visit at some future date to be determined.
Sadly, that never happened.
I look forward to continuing the conversation with Jim when we no longer see through a glass darkly, and the glory of God's full image in humanity is brought to perfection.
RIP my old friend.
For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. Psalm 62
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