What’s the most excruciating feeling in the world that doesn’t involve physical pain?
I imagine most of them would involve loss. Loss of a child, a love, a friend or a job. I tend to agree with the people who put loss of a child at the top of the list, although my sister who lost her husband to cancer would disagree with me.
I have been fortunate in both those respects. My two children are alive and well, and while I did lose a wife, she’s still alive. The loss was just her deciding she didn’t want me in her life anymore and that was nearly 45 years ago. My second wife — the true love of my life — has been with me going on 32 years now.
My excruciating feeling has involved friends.
When it comes to friendship, I have been truly blessed. I have friendships that date back more than 50 years, one of them more than 60 years.Of course the last time I saw any of them was 2017 and it has been more than 50 years since I’ve seen one of them. My only contact with her is through Facebook.
The excruciating part is the friends I’ve lost.
I had one friend of the rarest type, someone who became a close friend when I was on the far side of 40. We met through fantasy baseball and talked on the phone nearly weekly for years. But we had a disagreement in 2008 and he cut me off at the knees. We haven’t had any contact for 15 years.
Even more painful was when my practically lifelong friend I had known since 1965 died of a brain aneurysm in 2016. He was two years younger than I was, and it’s always awful when someone younger dies. I had seen him for the last time three years earlier, and I flew to Denver and back in 24 hours to attend his funeral.
But I have two friends, one in California and one in Pennsylvania, who are the two closest friends I have ever had in the world. They have been the two people I love most of anyone to whom I’m not related in any way.
The song above is a wonderful one about friendship. I was fortunate enough to see Clarence Clemons perform it in 1989, and I was actually with one of my two friends at the California State Fair in Sacramento.
Both of my friends have had a difficult time of it health-wise. One has survived two different kinds of cancer and the other has my myriad problems including heart trouble.
My cancer-fighting friend and I have become closer emotionally in the last couple of years. We shared a highlight moment a couple of years back when we got the thrill of holding a book that we had written together. Not much money made from it, but seeing a book in print we had written the first draft for more than 40 years ago was a truly wonderful moment.
People who know me well will know who the people not named here are. I’m leaving the names out to avoid any feeling of slanting the story in my favor. You see, my other friend and I have fallen on hard times. He actually wrote me several months back to tell me I was not trustworthy. I’m not sure there’s anything a friend could say to me that could have hurt me more.
My wife and I have been married for more than 31 years, and we have had many times we went right up to the edge and nearly called it quits. One time I remember from our last year in California, we were yelling at each other and I asked her why she wanted me to stay when I didn’t even think she liked me let alone loved me.
She said four words that were the perfect ones to touch my heart.
“Because you’re my friend.”
My wife is my friend. My children are my friends. As the line on the movie poster I’ve used many times over the years says. “Nothing is more important than friendship.”
I will never ask my friend who no longer trusts me for anything. I suppose I could say the ball is in his court now. But I will say anything he could ask that is within my power to do, I would do it.
As the wonderful song goes …
“Oh, you can depend on me. Over and over, over and over. Know that I intend to be the one who always makes you laugh until you cry. And you can call on me until the day you die.
“Years may come and go. Here’s one thing I know. All my life you’re a friend of mine.”