Friends forever

We say "friends forever" a lot and we obviously mean it when we say it but sometimes things don't turn out the way we had hoped.

Friendships are very similar to love relationships in this respect. We tell someone we'll love them forever and then we don't because things change, or they change or we change, or sometimes a combination of all three.

I've always believed that when you lie down to take your last breath, if it takes more than the fingers on one hand to count the true friends you've had in your life, you're truly a blessed person. A lot of the time we have difficulty distinguishing between friends and acquaintances but there are real and ever-present differences.

Friends aren't jealous of your successes. Friends are always trying to pull you up and never push you down. Friends want what's best for you, even if it changes the nature of your relationship with them in the process. Acquaintances tend to do just the opposite.

I've written in this column before that I think it's important that we marry our best friend. My wife and I were best friends. We would have rather been with each other than anyone else and, consequently, seldom did anything that didn't include the other person. Linda started a tradition early on in our marriage of giving two coffee cups as wedding gifts, accompanied by a hand-written note explaining how she and I started every single day sharing a cup of coffee with each other as we talked about the upcoming day. We would always do this before our kids woke up so it would be only her and I, enjoying a few moments of solitude and friendship before we tackled the duties and obligations of the day.

When my last relationship ended, the woman I had fallen deeply in love with told me of all the things she would miss, our friendship and the talks we had with each other would be the things she would miss the most because I was the only person who actually listened to what she had to say.

My best friend on the police department was a guy I did everything with and shared everything with. We talked at work and we talked after work. We shared meals with each other when we were on duty and went to each other's homes when we were off duty. We ended each conversation we had with each other with "I love you man," because we truly did.

But, like relationships, friends, or people we thought were our friends, sometimes disappoint us and let us down. Sometimes friendships, again like relationships, end without us even knowing why because the other person either can't tell us or won't tell us. This is the worst possible outcome because we live the rest of our lives wondering what happened. That's why the truth is always preferable to the lie and always preferable to saying nothing at all because, even if the truth is painful, it's always better to know than not know. That's happened to me more than once and I hate the pain it leaves in my heart.

The friendship I've had the longest since I moved to McCook 15 years ago is my friendship with Rick Michaelsen, a counselor at the college. We became friends soon after I started teaching there and have been friends ever since. I would do anything within my power and ability for him and I know he would do the same for me. We visit each other's office often when we're at school or talk on the phone when we don't have time to visit, spend time with each other socializing when we're not at work and talk on the phone every night. He and his wife Betty are in New York City this week, celebrating their wedding anniversary by attending the final home series in Yankee Stadium before it's torn down.

Rick is a lifelong Yankee fan and I know it's going to be an emotional experience for him. They're staying with friends in the Big Apple and he called me last night to tell me he was sitting out on their deck, sipping on a glass of wine, looking out across the Brooklyn Bridge and that it would really be great if I was there too.

That, perhaps, is a more telling example of friendship than anything else because we like sharing peak moments in our lives with our friends, whether they are platonic friends like Rick, or romantic friends like our wives or girlfriends.

Because I miss the friendships I've lost, I treasure even more the friendships that remain and try to enjoy them to their fullest because I can think of few things worse than living a life without people you care for and people who care for you.

And we always have to remember that to have a friend, we have to BE a friend.