By 1984, he completely ran out of options to extend his visa. Against our parents' advice, he married the girl he was dating primarily to stay here. He moved to Chicago to marry her, and we never heard from him again.
Fast forward to last weekend, as I am in Vegas with my bro doing 50 proud. We wander into Planet Hollywood and listen to the final set of music from a pretty good rock band. We start a conversation with a pretty blond girl, who happens to be in Vegas with her best friend celebrating her 50th. She mentions that she is from Chicago, lives in California now, went to school at OU and married a European guy who is an aeronautical engineer. My bro mentioned our long lost student by name, and it turns out that the pretty blond is the very same girl the guy left to marry almost 30 years ago.
To say that all of our minds were blown would be an understatement. Sometimes coincidences are just too coincidental to be mere coincidence. Word travelled fast, and the blowing of minds extended to at least four states. We've tried to find this guy several times over the past 29 years and didn't have any luck. Now, without warning or preparation, here's his (now ex) wife. What a wonderful, random, unexplainable, out of the blue experience.
When we finally got to talk to him, It was really weird. I told him it was good to talk to my brother who ran away from home. We heard about his kids, career and life, but none of us had our fill of talking. Hopefully over the next few weeks and months, we'll be able to reconnect with someone who was a big part of my family during and after high school.
What a great birthday present.
And Elton John was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed every single second of that concert.
What a weekend!