Dear Class of '88,

I recently found a note I’d written during a Holy Cross alumni retreat twenty years ago. The weekend retreat was led by two Jesuits, Fathers Tom Quinn and John King, and held at the Mount Manresa Jesuit Retreat House on Staten Island. Upon arriving, I realized the average age was 65 or 70. The group of Holy Cross alumni was in a different life stage, and I wasn't sure if I’d made the right decision for how to spend my weekend. I sat with Fr. King, who asked what was on my mind. I was in a funk; I had sought out the retreat because I’d been feeling low-level anxiety. Fr. King asked my age and said that, as a 40-year-old, I was at a stage when many psychologists believe that we have enough information about ourselves and our world to be purposeful in life. While we seek direction throughout our lives, by age 40 or so, we are sufficiently self-aware that we understand what motivates and drives us. In other words, as we hit middle age, our questioning turns from “Who am I?” to “What is my purpose?”

Fr. King’s kind guidance helped me at a time when the extrinsic parts of life seemed important: Am I giving enough time to my family? Am I on the right career path? Etc.

The challenges at 40 were different from the challenges at 20. At Holy Cross, we were still forming ourselves, expressing who we were. The posters or art we hung in our dorm rooms, how we dressed, our choices in music—those shaped our individuality. At the same time, we were self-conscious: Did I say something stupid? Am I any good at this? We were as eager to fit in as we were to stand out.

More than the Escher print, Guess jeans, or R.E.M. album, what has endured from those college years is the love and the friendship we share. Forty years later, I’m sure you can name your funniest friends at college, the brightest, the most anxious, and the most generous. Those persons, in turn, can describe what makes you, you. We’ve all had the experience of catching up with a Holy Cross classmate we haven't spoken to in years, and the immediacy and depth of the conversation collapses time.

Fifteen years ago, a group of Holy Cross classmates gathered at a funeral for a classmate’s father. As we walked out of the church, one classmate looked around at the group of us and recalled a pet phrase of our friend’s dad, who’d said, “People don’t change. They become ‘more so.’” We laughed; sometimes in our habits and opinions, we seem like exaggerated versions of our younger selves. But it’s also a wonderful sentiment: our friends become more of what we love.

At our last class reunion, I spoke with a friend who hadn’t attended in a long time. He said that in college, he’d been a heavy drinker, and while he’d been sober for years, coming to reunions wasn’t always comfortable. It reminded him of times when he wasn’t “the best version of himself.” Beyond the obvious—many of us drank too much during our college years, and I didn’t recall him being an outlier—what struck me was his candor. He was always thoughtful, but this wasn’t the sort of conversation that we would have had when we were younger. In his self-awareness and his willingness to share, he had become “more so.”

The note I’d written during that 2006 retreat seemed important in the moment, but life was busy, and I had filed it away. Here’s what Fathers King and Quinn said:

“We cannot pretend to understand the will of God. Each day, trust His guidance and His direction. Don’t try to program your life. Ten years from now, you may question, 'Why did I make this decision? Why did I choose that path?’ If you remain open to God’s purpose for you, this decision and that path are appropriate at that moment in time. As we understand from other trials in our lives, such as illness or the death of a loved one, we must focus on being open to God’s will. Seek not so much ‘the answer’ as to be a conduit of God’s love. Good will follow.”

It’s nearly forty years since graduation. My god, where has it gone? Each of us can make a list, of course. Perhaps marriage, graduate school, first or second careers, pregnancy, raising children, moving to a new neighborhood or across the globe, divorce, new friendships, a pandemic, the deaths of family members, major illness, etc. I guess that’s where the time has gone.

Now we’re 60, or on the cusp of it. We’ve recognized the futility of trying to find “the answer,” to solve our lives or the lives of others. We’ve experienced the joy of being a conduit of God’s love. For your 60th year, give yourself a gift. Reach out to a classmate. Perhaps it’s someone from whom you’ve drifted. Perhaps you’ll share a specific memory from decades earlier. Call, text, email, or set a time to meet. Be generous with your friendship and love and expect nothing in return. Good things will follow.

Best wishes,

Mike Hogan