Old Friends
Just a little while ago I spent a precious afternoon with an old friend, a friend from so far back that he knows stuff about me that nobody else knows, stuff I’d just as soon he kept to himself. You understand – you were young and foolish, once.
Decades ago our ways parted geographically and professionally. He went across the continent and made a life as a scientist in British Columbia, since then I spent ten years as a teacher, five years as a law student, and thirty-seven as a lawyer. Sometimes we kept in touch, sometimes we didn’t.
In many ways, life has treated us much the same. Good marriages, great children and grandchildren, a host of friends, wonderful memories. And yet on opposite sides of the continent, different professions, public service versus self-employed– so different.
But what really matters about friends is history and trust and care. My friend’s story matters to me, and mine to him. That his kids are doing well, or not, that his health is precarious, or not, that his spouse is standing faithfully at his side (no “or not” in that case) – these things matter greatly to me, because I am his friend. And he is my friend.
Some day he will be no more, and I will grieve at his graveside. Or perhaps I will be no more, and he will grieve at mine. Either way, one of us will be there for the other. This is what friends do.
Which got me thinking about the investment in friendship. The occasional phone call. The odd e-mail. Getting together for a coffee, or a beer, or a meal.
Your assignment: call an old friend. Phone, e-mail, it doesn’t matter much, just connect and get together. Pick up and catch up. They will enrich you, and you will enrich them.
Can’t think of a better deal. Can you?