What It Means to Be a Friend

It's mid-week, Wednesday, and I'm on the tail end - thankfully - of five mediations in seven days.  One more mediation today, then I can slow down just a bit.

What's been on my mind this week, though, is friendship and what it means to be a friend.

At various times Saturday while we visited with my friend, Dave, and his wife, Mary, in Louisville, he got tired and we helped him into the bedroom to lay down and nap.  We took turns watching him on a baby monitor, as I mentioned earlier, so we could help him if he decided he wanted to get up.  It was surreal, to say the least, to stare at a baby monitor and watch Dave - one of the most confident and successful people I know - like I watched my boys, sleeping in their cribs, when they were infants.

More often than not and particularly as the afternoon turned into night, Doug slipped into the bedroom and lay down on the bed beside Dave.  Usually, he tried to talk to Dave, acted silly, and generally prevented him from sleeping.  It got to the point that Mary or one of us tried to talk Doug out of going into the bedroom.  Alternatively, we went into the bedroom and tried to convince Doug to get up and join the rest of us for a drink.

At one point, with Mary's laughing encouragement, Dave insisted Doug agree to a "safe word" which, when used by Dave or his family, meant Doug had to leave Dave alone.  

Bobcat.

Even now, saying that word out loud, I smile.  

Doug and I have been close friends for more than 40 years and I know him, inside and out.  He's hurting so badly as he watches Dave slip away.  I know that and it affects Doug more deeply and differently than it does me, because he is closer to Dave, and Doug and I are different people.  Seeing Doug in such unbearable pain is devastating to me. 

As I talked to Jude on the phone Sunday morning and recounted the events of the previous day to her, I broke down and cried in the coffee shop, as I described Doug insisting on laying down next to Dave whenever Dave took a nap.  It was such an act of unbridled love and affection, built on years and years of friendship.  Dave hurts, so Doug hurts, too.  

It's what friends do, I think. 

Doug's devotion to Dave was beautiful to watch and it continued on Sunday morning at Cracker Barrel, where I watched Doug cut up Dave's pancakes for him without a second thought.  An act of service and an act of love.  Above all, an act of friendship.

At times like this, we close the circle tighter around Dave, Mary, and their children.  We fill the circle with love and prayer. 

What else can we do?