On the Nature of Friendship

I've been fortunate to have a number of great and lasting friendships in my life, and recognize that I'm extraordinarily lucky this way.  I have friends from high school and shortly after that I can sit down with at any time and feel completely comfortable, regardless of the topic of conversation, even if I don't agree with them.  This is a rare thing, and wonderful to have.  I count among my very best friends my wife, my parents and my wife's parents.  My younger brother, whom I tortured endlessly in my teens, is also a friend that I would not want to do without.

Like everyone else, I have quite a number of "peripheral" friends, people that I enjoy seeing and interacting with, but who wouldn't impact my life in any meaningful way if they were to disappear suddenly, never to be seen again, except perhaps to cause me to think, "what ever happened to ________?".

There's one person however, that somehow became, almost instantly, a great joy and comfort to me; immediately, entirely irreplaceable, a crutch in good times and bad, someone that I wanted to see and speak with regardless of circumstance, whose viewpoint was seldom my own, but who always made me think.  His weaknesses and strengths mirror my own, even though they are quite different.

This language that I am limited to is entirely inadequate in expressing how much this man means to me.  Let me be clear here though, for those of you whose sense of humor tends toward the childish - there is nothing in our friendship that could be taken as homosexual. I'll say no more on the subject, lest you demand that "He doth protest too much", and bring to this topic something that has no place in it.

This friend - much too small a word, by the way - brings to my life an intimate kinship beyond the bounds of our very different upbringings and adult lives.  On the surface, there would seem to be nothing common in our experiences to bring us together as brothers, but nonetheless, the bond that I feel is beyond any I've felt before.  With no disrespect or lessening of my other great friendships intended, I say that this one has taken me past the outside of my existential bubble and into new territory.

Recognizing that this guy is as completely flawed as the rest of us, of course.  He's no Messiah, no great Prophet, just a dude whose company and time I enjoy immensely.  We connect, that's all.

Did I mention that I met this man only five years ago?  That he's some number of years younger than I, but yet much older in soul?  That yesterday, he boarded a plane to eastern Canada, there to stay for at least one year in the interest of furthering his chosen career?  That I encouraged this move as I knew he was stagnating, while swallowing the horror that filled me at the prospect?

So - the nature of friendship.  There are billions of us on this rock, but this one tiny excerpt of humanity impacts me in a way that none other has.  What makes this wonderous thing happen?  I have no idea.  I'll see him again, and I have no doubt that our friendship will continue to flourish in the future.  But in his honor and absence, I'm keeping my mind open to it happening again, elsewhere.

Take great care, my irreplaceable friend, and make good this opportunity to be what I already know you are.

Isn't life a glorious thing?