An Essay on Friendship

A Funeral

I went to a funeral this past Saturday. It was in NY so I had to travel quite a bit. I wish I could say I went up there for a good reason. Those who know me know I relish the time I get to spend in my hometown. Unfortunately I attended a funeral of a close friend. Before I can really get into any sort of description or rant about anything one must first understand the dynamics of my life in the small town of New Hampton. I had your normal childhood, two great parents, a dog, and a younger sister, who I am sure I think is a lot greater now than I did when we were growing up! We both took horseback riding lessons at a great little stable near our house. "The barn" as we fondly called it became the social center of not only my universe but many others as well. I took lessons right after another little girl named Kristen. Kristen had an older brother Greg who hung around the barn and goofed around. Frankly none of us girls cared for Greg that much. Being that we were a group of pre teen girls who were a lot more interested in their ponies than boys we did the most natural thing possible. We pulled nasty pranks on the evil boy who was disturbing us! After a while, all the water fights, nasty words, wet shoes, and booby traps led to something amazing. We all became best friends. As we grew older we started hanging out at other venues rather than barn. We moved to Greg's house, the roller skating rink, the movies, skiing, you name it we were there. Time passed and we shared milestones together, driver's licenses, high school graduation, wild parties (they know the ones I mean) and successive relationships which came and went.

All of us are over twenty now, the youngest is just about to turn 21 next month, and the oldest is about 25. That's the interesting thing about true friends age somehow never seemed to matter. 

People laugh and joke about what good friends are supposed to mean. Go ahead and google friendship and you will find countless quips ranging from exceedingly sappy to the cheesy attempt to laugh about holding someone hair out of the toilet after a crazy night. But really I have taken care of drunken people I can't stand in addition to friends. (and honestly I know some people who are probably nicer to people they can't stand that are drunk then to their friends.) Who needs sappy poems; there is enough sappiness in our world without another sappy quote on how friends stick together. Friendship is really putting up with someone even though half the stuff they do annoys you to death. If you put up with this for more than three times a week for over ten years its love; Your one step away from marriage without the sex.

            In any case I was up in New York to say goodbye to someone who I called  friend. How he died doesn't really matter, what matters is he can't be with us any longer. We all stuck together for this, some of us, (myself included) coming from out of town. We did our usual thing. Hang out at Greg's till all hours of the night, run out of coffee in the morning. The only thing different was that we then went to go remember our friend. Remembering really doesn't do the remembered any good. Remembering is for the living. I always have known that but it really hit me this past weekend. No matter what we do or say, it's not going to change anything for that person. It only changes things for us. We go through the normal grieving process; Sadness, anger and acceptance and then fond remembrance. Sometimes people continue to visit the grave site, or put a prayer card in their car, or as I am doing keep something of theirs close by. But after thinking about this I have decided the best way to remember a person is to put all the love for that person into friends that aren't dead. Forgive me for being crass but when you keep giving your love, friendship and loyalty to someone who can no longer reciprocate it anymore we loose one of the greatest joys of our life. So in remembrance of my friend Mikey, I am not going to sit at home and hope he is in a better place, and wish he was still with us, I am going to devote my time and energy to my friends and soon to be husband (Who I luckily also consider a friend!)  Here's to you David, Jerry, Jayme, Greg and Debra. Here is a little more devotion to my friends.