Fifty years ago this month I went off to college for the first time, a timid 18-year-old introvert, thrilled to be there, eager to learn, but anxious and unsure of myself.
In the room next door in my dorm, there was a curly-haired, bubbly girl named Deb. She had a glorious soprano voice, a deep faith, and a gift for making friends wherever she went. She was smart and loved learning as much as I did.
We bonded quickly: both artistic, both musicians, both left-handed, both passionate about the arts and the environment, and both lighthearted enough to laugh at ourselves often. We became roommates, buying a second-hand bunk bed frame, stacking our beds and spending the rest of our college years embarking on one adventure after another.
We took music lessons: piano and organ for me; voice and piano for Deb. We sang in the chapel choir. We toured Europe as members of the Adrian College Singers (filling the bus with roses from village markets along the way).
We pulled all-nighters writing papers on Meister Eckhart, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and C. S. Lewis.
When I had mono, she took a picture of me sacked out in my bunk and joked about my sleeping 24/7. When she had a painful breakup with her boyfriend, I held her while she cried.
When she sang the lead role in Menotti’s The Telephone, I was there to cheer her on. She was there for me when I played Granados’ “The Maiden and the Nightingale” in a recital.
We worked hard in a variety of tough college classes, but we also made time for college zaniness. We helped the girls on our corridor build a floor-to-ceiling wall of empty soft-drink cans that completely blocked our hallway (for weeks we had to detour through the community bathrooms to reach our room), and we were there on that noisy and somehow very satisfying day when they knocked it completely over.
Though our parents despaired of us ever earning a living—“What are you going to do with that liberal arts degree?”—we both did well in the work world after graduation. Deb ended up in Corporate IT and I became a technical writer.
As the years passed, we supported each other through life’s changes and challenges: becoming empty nesters, the illnesses and deaths of our parents, our own health challenges.
Now we talk once a month, over Zoom. We encourage each other’s spiritual growth; read books on race relations; talk about knotty relationship issues. We laugh a lot on every call, and we usually run out of time when we still have more to talk about.
This week, we are both in Rocky Mountain National Park with our spouses, celebrating our 50 years of friendship.
We still laugh together, a lot. Deb still sings beautifully (I played “Amazing Grace” on a hundred-year-old piano here, and she sang). She still has curly hair, and she still makes a new friend on every outing we take. And both of us stop and read every information board on every trail because we still love to learn new things.
Fifty years after my start as an insecure college freshman, I am still uncertain about a few things in life. But one thing I am very certain of: My ongoing friendship with Deb Jackson Lum is one of the great blessings of my life.
