Friendship

Yesterday on the day before my 47th birthday, I was reunited with two amazing people that I have seen in 25 years. One is a wonderful lady who has always been one of the most charming and entertaining people I have met. The other was a man whom I count among my 5 Best Friends of all times and one of two people I consider a brother (Besides my actual biological brothers.) At the risk of sounding immodest and egotistical (Wait too late)he is one of the few people that I have ever encountered that I consider to be my intellectual and creative equal. Even now after nearly 3 decades, I feel as close to him as I do anyone I know today.

Now all of this got me thinking about different things and one of them is friendship. I think friendship and friend are prolly two of the most misused words ever. Maybe because I have a much stronger view on what it means to be a friend but I think when most people use the words they actually mean acquaintances. They mean people they go to the clubs with on the weekend or meet for lunch together at work. All that is cool, but that is not friendship to me.

My Daddy told me once, "Bobby a real friend is someone if you call them up and say you just shot a man, the only thing that the friend is gonna do is help you get rid of the body." Maybe that sounds a little extreme, but that is the way I view friendship.

There are exactly two people besides my wife that I can honestly that I could call and no matter what they would help me. Brothers in everything but blood and twins in everything but body, these two people would do anything for me and I would do anything for them. Fight for them and die alongside of them if I had to.

I have lots of "friends" that are good people and I like them alot. Heck, I got hundreds of FaceBook friends and I like them all, but I give my true friendship out sparingly because, with me, it carries a lot of obligations because friends stay at each others sides no matter what.

So Phil, Ben, Thomas, Shari and a couple of more, you know who you are and what you mean to me. I'm there in a heartbeat (or three in some cases cause they are far away.) Friends to the end.