A chart can tell a sailor how many miles lie between his ship and home, but no instrument can measure the distance that rose between two old friends when one of them leaves with the most important words still unspoken. I'm Captain Harlow, and this is Letters from the Sea. After nearly a year away, Sailor Jack Mercer wrote to the friend he had known since childhood, the friend he had left standing on the harbor dock without a proper goodbye. He called his letter, Leave a Place Beside You. Dear Ben, the sea is quiet tonight. Not peaceful, but quiet. There is a difference. Peace lets a man rest, and quiet gives him too much room to remember. Tonight, I remembered the boat that we built when we were twelve. We stole two planks from your father's shed, tied them to three empty barrels, and declared ourselves captains. It sank in less than ten minutes. You blamed my knots, and I blamed your barrels, and your father blamed both of us. I haven't thought about that day in years, but tonight, standing beneath the sky filled with more stars than I knew existed. I would have traded every one of them to be twelve years old again, sitting beside you on that half-sunken boat. I used to think the storms would be the hardest part of going to sea, but they're not. During a storm, a man has work to do. There are ropes to pull and sails to lower and water to keep outside the ship. There is no time to think about what you left behind. It is the calm that gets to you. It is seeing a harbor glowing beneath foreign lights and realizing that there is no one beside you who remembers the boy who you used to be. I have seen mountains rising straight out of the ocean. I have watched the sun turn the water red. I have walked through cities where I could not understand a single word spoken around me. And every time I have seen something beautiful, I have thought the same thing: Ben should be here. Then I remember the way that we parted. You were standing at the end of the dock. You told me I had spent my whole life leaving before anything could ask me to stay. I became angry because I knew you were right. You said that one day I would come home and discover that nobody was waiting. And I answered that I won't come home. Those were the last words I gave you. A year is a long time to carry one foolish sentence. You deserve better after all the years that you stood beside me. You were there when my father died and the house filled with people who did not know what to say. You said nothing. You simply sat with me on the back steps until morning. When I had no money, you shared yours. When I had nowhere to sleep, your family made room. When I told everyone I was meant for something beyond our little town, you were the only one who really believed me. And when I finally left to find it, I treated you as though you were the one holding me back. I am sorry, Ben. I told myself I was homesick, but home is only a collection of roads, buildings, and familiar doors. Those things cannot miss a man. They cannot forgive him. They cannot leave a light burning when he has stayed away too long. People do that. You did that for me more times than I deserved. I don't know if you still visit the harbor on Sunday mornings. I don't know whether the old bench is still there or whether it finally surrendered to the weather. If it is there, sit on it sometime. Look beyond the lighthouse and imagine me somewhere on the other side of that horizon. I will probably be standing at the rail, imagining you in the same place. You do not have to write anything grand. Tell me whether the roof at the diner still leaks over the third table. Tell me if Mr. Calloway still claims he once caught a fish longer than his boat. Tell me whether the old ball field still floods when it rains. Tell me ordinary things. Out here, ordinary things have become precious. We are due home in twenty-three days. When I come ashore, I will walk to that bench. I don't expect you to forget the way I left. I only hope that you might forgive it. And if you are willing, leave a place beside you, your friend, Jack. Jack Mercer received no reply before his ship reached home. When he stepped onto the dock twenty-three days later, no one was there to meet him. He gathered his sea bag and walked alone toward the harbor, uncertain whether he had returned too late. The old bench was still there, and so was Ben. He was holding two cups of coffee, and as Jack approached, Ben moved one of them to the empty place beside him and said, You still owe me for those barrels. Jack sat down. Jack continued sailing for many years, but before every voyage, Ben stood with him at the harbor and And from every distant port, Jack sent him a letter, not about mountains, foreign cities, or great storms, but about the ordinary things a man tells the friend who knows him best. Distance is measured in miles. Friendship is measured by the place someone keeps for you while you are gone. This has been Another Letters from the Sea. I'm Captain Harlow. Until next time, may the wind be kind, and may it always carry you home.
