My mother was an avid letter writer, something that has been virtually eliminated in our society with the advent of texting on the cellphone. She wrote letters for 17 years to a woman in upstate New York.

When I had asked her where they had met, her reply was: “We actually never did. One day I called the wrong number and she picked up the phone. My apology began a half-hour conversation that ended with, ‘Let’s keep in touch.’ We write each other once every month now.”

I have an ongoing friendship with a man I have never met in person. In August 2018, I had a 15-minute phone call with Robert Mitas, an accomplished Hollywood movie producer. We discussed the process of making a movie based upon my past life experiences that I wrote about in my book titled, “Upon a Field of Gold.” The very next day, he said he wanted to take on the project. As Head of Originals for Voyage Media, Robert secured a screenwriter. Andy Fickman, a renowned Hollywood motion picture director, was brought into our base camp group.

With a screenplay written and a team ready to acquire actors and put financing in place, our project moved forward at a steady and confident pace.

Four events then happened that brought everything to a standstill. The pandemic shut down thousands of movie theaters across the country. Many movies were being streamed right to our TV sets. Then the screenwriters went on strike followed by an actors strike. Most productions came to a halt.

The result of this was that investors are now cautious about putting millions of dollars into the production of any movie, especially one like mine that requires a fairly large budget of millions of dollars due to a number of Civil War scenes. Through it all, Robert Mitas, who has produced several films apart and with Voyage Media, has remained committed to our project.

I have gotten a great deal of education about the movie industry from Robert, and that’s why I trust him and Voyage Media, a company that opens closed Hollywood doors to get great stories to the screen. For now, he keeps me engaged in what we both seek as the common goal. There are very few people in my life that I have trusted just by their word. Robert is one of the few.

Someone once said: “The friends I have never met are not my friends untouched for I have felt them with me. … I have confided in them and they are some of the kindest people I have ever known.”

Robert and I have spoken on the phone every two or three months for the past six years. Our conversations usually begin with updates about our personal lives. Robert coached his daughters in softball. I coached my son in baseball. In his younger years, he used to be a whitewater rafting guide. My daughter has trained to be a guide on the Lehigh River. We talk about the vast differences in his life in California and mine in Pennsylvania.

Recently, Robert produced “Rise and Shine” with Voyage, a film that chronicles the life of a home-schooled girl who has cerebral palsy. She decides to enter high school, where she faces a multitude of challenges before inspiring her community with optimism and positivity.

I shared with him my latest book that is about to be published, a cooperative memoir about a man abused by his alcoholic father as a child. The main character channels his anger into becoming a professional baseball pitcher who nearly gets to the major leagues with the New York Mets before arm injuries spiral his life into becoming just like his drunken dad’s. Robert shared with me some ideas to facilitate the chronology of the plot.

Six years of phone calls have proved to me that Robert is staying the course with our project. During this time, we have bonded on several personal levels that have prefaced our business updates.

Speaking of business, Robert continues to seek an avenue for our project’s direction. He tells me that many Hollywood movies take up to 11 years or longer to go from script to screen. I laugh and tell him I may not live long enough if I must wait another five years.

He understands my frustration and I understand that patience really is a virtue. Yet, I believe his honesty with me and his commitment to our project. He has never lost faith in my story and he wants to show the world that there is a probability that someone can have a past life and that death cannot end a timeless love between two people who will find each other again in a future lifetime.

Writer Isabelle Alende said, “True friendship resists time, distance, and silence.”

With seven decades of life behind me, I know something about the loyalty of friendship. It survives conflicts, heartbreaks, long absences and life-changing calamities. My relationship with Robert has not only survived six years of telephone calls, but our friendship has grown stronger over that time.

The day will come. Perhaps it might take another year, maybe longer. It might not happen while I am still walking this earth, but our movie will find its way to the silver screen. Of course, I hope it will be sooner, not later.

I look forward to that day when I go to Hollywood and meet Robert Mitas in person. We will finally get to shake hands at the grand premiere of “Upon a Field of Gold.”

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com