The most powerful thing about friendship is the perspective that it affords us in realizing that old adage of:
“See your friends, see yourself”.
The dynamics of friendship is something littered through much of my writing.
It has always been a tightly held contention of mine that friendship is one of the elemental forces that provides us with the needed contrast, making our borrowed time on this planet well worth the ride.
It is the innocence of childhood; awkwardness of adolescence; coming of age; figuring out our place in the world; the advent of adulthood and ultimately the realization of our own mortality that truly tests our mettle.
When others have faltered and thrown in the proverbial towel there is always that exception, that handful of people that never shirk from the duty that friendship entails.
That being said I am unable to segment and assign weight to my friendships as I liken them to the ingredients in a recipe…
In that removing a single ingredient can impact the flavor of an entire dish, but when I ruminate on friendship and what those foundational elements are comprised of, my best friend Ken sits in that pantheon of friendship and I would be remiss to say that our 4 decades of history cannot be understated.
Being one of the most instrumental people in my life has to be a thankless job and for that I cannot enunciate the sheer gravity of what that means, for all intensive purposes you have been one of the best people that I’ve ever had the privilege of having in my orbit.
Serving as a muse, confidant, conscience and issuing: “Cat that’s just real stupid, what’s wrong with you man? I’ll punch you in the face” logic has saved my life many times over.
You’ve always spoken truth to me regardless of the circumstance(s). I’ve stopped trying to make sense of your magnanimous nature.
Throughout our lives your consistency in setting your burdens to the side for the purpose of taking on the heavy loads that I’ve had to contend with simply because it was what needed to be done… Is nothing short of powerful and I truly appreciate it.
My greatest fear is that I haven’t been the friend, the pillar that you’ve always been for me.
Admittedly, I stopped trying to figure it out years ago, because you’ve taught me that:
“Friends do because it needs to be done, not because they expect accolades.”
I’ve always been inclined to believe that our friendship was fostered prior to our entrance to this world – as our Mother’s would often regale us of their striking up a friendship when they were pregnant with the both of us.
I am uncertain when it happened, but you stopped being my friend decades ago.
You are my brother, because our experiences trump the fickle bonds of genetic lineage, I value your faithfulness in always being there for me without judgement because you knew that was what was needed.
As a sidebar: Remember when we kids and you couldn’t have milk with your cereal because your face would make the milk spoil, so you had to eat your cereal with water?
Happy Birthday KR…
Shun P. Writes... dot com 