Valerie
By: Kevin King
Tags: Hope, Growing Up, Friendship

Val was from my hometown, a couple of years older. The funny thing is, I don’t remember actually meeting Val; she was always just there.

What I do remember is Val’s kindness to everyone. It didn’t matter if you were popular or a social outcast, upper or lower class, athletic or … less than — Val was universally kind to everyone. Never one to act out or do anything to garner attention, Val simply made high school a lot more tolerable for underclass outcasts like me.

A couple of years later, I heard my name called from across the college cafeteria. Before I could turn around to see who it was, Val was standing right there and leaned in for a hug. “You’re here!” she said, and to be honest, I didn’t know what to say. For all her kindness in high school, it’s regrettable to admit that I could not remember her name.

“Valerie” she said. “You remember? People just call me Val now”. Suddenly, a light clicked on: VALERIE. Right, I remember. All those times when she kept the upper-class bullies at bay or helped me with homework in the library, or when she would be kind at precisely the right time. Yes, THAT Valerie. “Val” now.

Over the next few weeks, I ran into Val a couple of times, mostly in the cafeteria where she worked. We’d exchange pleasantries but rarely much more. See, back then I was what people now call a “horrible person.” Starting from a social outcast in high school, I somehow majored in “asshole” my first couple of years in college. Yet, Val didn’t care. She was always pleasant and happy to see me.

It must’ve been sometime around the holidays that year when I ran into Val again when she asked if she could bum a ride home with me. I tried to explain that her home wasn’t really on my way — it was a whole TWO MILES out of my way — and that would have been a grave inconvenience. With a cartoon-like twinkle in her eye, she said, “What if I could show you a shortcut that cuts off 20 minutes from your drive?”. In my mind I laughed: Surely you must be joking Val. I’ve made this trip many times and as a certified know-it-all I can assure you that you are mistaken. “Tell you what,” she said, “let me bum this ride with you and if you don’t shave AT LEAST TWENTY MINUTES off your time, I won’t ask you for a ride again.”

DEAL.

As it turned out, even with the few minutes it took to drop her off, Val’s shortcut shaved off almost a half-hour. But elapsed time wasn’t the only time saved. From the moment our drive started to when she was home, we talked about anything and everything. As a result, the drive clicked by so quickly! Interestingly, Val wasn’t a talker as much as a listener. She’d start a conversation and then sit back and watch a person run with it. I cannot imagine how bored so must’ve been with my know-it-all sphincter-with-fedora attitude. But you would never know it. For two people who had exchanged little more than pleasantries over the past several years, we talked like we had been best friends our whole lives.

From that point on, we traded drives back home when our schedules aligned, which seemed to increase over the next couple of years leading up to her graduation. More importantly, we became real friends. Just like in high school, Val was like a guardian angel, keeping me out of trouble that I had no problem finding. She helped me land a job working at the cafeteria and made sure I did the best job possible with it, even though it was the last place I wanted to be. She even made dinner for me a couple of times when I didn’t have two nickels to my name.

As I look back on our friendship, I am dismayed that I did nothing to deserve her grace. I can’t think of a single thing I ever did for Val, despite all the kindness she shared with me. She believed the best of me and for me and invested great effort breaking down my terrible personality to breathe light to the person I eventually became.