What is FRIENDSHIP? 2

Super Friends

 

This post is part 2 to: “What is FRIENDSHIP? Posted 3/13/2013 http://www.being50.com/2013/03/what-is-friendship-value-of-friendship.html

 

I’ve said before that if you are lucky, you will have one or two “Best Friends,” in your life time.  I guess I am very lucky in that sense.  Great friends don’t have to be in constant touch.  However, whenever the opportunity presents itself to communicate in writing or verbal, it’s like there hasn’t been a long passage of time between contacts, you just pick up where you left off.

I have 3 or 4 great friends that I stay in touch with, I am not a person that needs constant attention probably because I come from a large family.  While I am an only son from my father and mother, I did have a couple of half-sisters (one older and one younger), growing up, and then went on to have 7 children.

My life has been moving at 120 miles per hour down the highway of life, and I haven’t had time to meet with my friends.  We’ve communicated by phone, text, email, and Facebook but not an in person meeting for close to 6 months.  We all live in the same town so no great effort is required to make it happen.  We are all very well settled down people with comfortable retirements, and happy families so we all have pretty full lives, with plenty of family social life, and thus the difficulty in getting together.

I finally left a voice message for one of my friends and told him what my schedule was like so we could connect and have a breakfast or lunch.  The very next morning he called me and wanted to meet for breakfast in 15 minutes, so we made it happen.  The first question I asked is how have you been, and how is life treating you.  As real friends we ask because we care, it’s not just a greeting.

We spent the time while we waited to be served comparing notes on how the wives are treating us (as it turns out like kings).  Once the food arrived we got into some serious conversation.  He starts with, did I tell you I fell off my roof, and I was shocked because he and I don’t joke about serious things like that.  As it turned out he was cleaning his roof, while his wife was at work, while on the roof he got dizzy so he sat down to gain his composure, and he lost his grip and started sliding until he went off the roof.

I asked him how badly he was hurt and he said he was lucky he landed on his feet and rolled as soon as he made contact with the ground.  I should explain that he was an MP (Military Police) with the Air Force, and still has a few moves under his belt (no Chuck Norris to be sure) but most likely someone was looking over him.  He has yet to tell his wife about it.  He said he isn’t afraid of her he just has high respect for the little lady.  I don’t blame him, I wouldn’t tell my wife either, if I could walk straight after taking a fall like that.

The point that I am trying to build up to is twofold; 1) he is very comfortable financially, and should be paying some professional to handle the heavy (or dangerous) work, 2) we need to stay in touch with our friends because I would hate to have some serious injury happen and not be aware.  What kind of friend would I be?  I know that we have our hands full with life and our families in general, but these aren’t just anybody, this is our close circle of friends.  I have known this friend for 30 years.  It seems that the dizziness while on the roof was caused by problems with blood pressure. He was taken to his doctor to check his blood pressure and his doctor sent him immediately to Emergency Care because he felt that the level of blood pressure he was experiencing could have brought on a heart attack (his blood pressure was controlled with medication).  I can’t imagine losing a friend like that, when he only lives about 5 blocks from my house, and I not be aware. 

I make a commitment right now in front of my readers, and to myself, to be a better friend.  Conversely, I ask my readers to take a clue from my experience, be the kind of friends that stay in touch, and check up on your friends.  I also ask you to consider how dangerous the projects you are involved with, might be to your well-being.  The best is yet to come……