For almost twenty years, I did not return to Hungary.

By the time I finally went back, my mother had died.

There are consequences to decisions that can never be measured simply by deciding whether the decision itself was right or wrong.

Leaving Hungary was the best decision I ever made.

I still believe that.

But it had a cost.

One of those costs was that my mother and I never had the reunion I might once have imagined.

When I returned, however, I found that the relatives who had remained behind were doing relatively well.

And I found Szaby.

Our friendship was reestablished.

The young man who had chosen to remain in Hungary because he did not want to leave his girlfriend eventually became part of my life again.

When I later married Ann in St. Moritz, Szaby and his future wife were the only people who came from Hungary.

Szaby served as my best man.

Later, we took three vacations together.

Eventually, he became Manager of the Budapest office of my company.

History had separated us.

Life had found a way to bring us together again.

Years later, Szaby made an observation about me that I have never forgotten.

He told me that if I had stayed in Hungary, I probably would not have been alive by then.

He did not think I necessarily would have joined an organized opposition movement.

He believed that sooner or later I simply would have said or done something as an individual that the people in power would have been unable to tolerate.

I thought about it.

He was probably right.