Reflection / John Shaughnessy

The gift of a friend

When I saw the name connected to the missed call, I knew I had to return it immediately. I just hoped the opportunity hadn’t been lost to talk one more time with one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

I hope you have a friend like my friend Jim. Someone who has a way of making you smile and laugh. Someone you can count on. Someone you would reach out to for help through a tough time in your life. Someone who would have your back even if you did something wrong—and maybe even challenge you to be better. Someone who would be thrilled for you when you have good news to share.

Jim has given me all these gifts at different moments in my life, dating back to the beginning of our friendship in high school in the Philadelphia area in the 1970s. And now with his phone call that I missed, I wholeheartedly believed that Jim was trying to give me one more gift.

The gift to tell each other thanks—and goodbye.

For several years, he had fought the good fight in his battle with cancer—not just determined to beat it, but to continue to live his life with a positive energy that would bring joy, hope, smiles and laughter to his family, his friends and, well, just about everyone who crossed his path.

With him living in Minnesota and me in Indiana, our weekly conversations were mostly by phone during those years, but they were routinely the conversations I savored the most. Every one was filled with shared news about our families, memories from high school, discussions about life,

his efforts to help create sports programs for children and youths in under-served, urban areas and talk about our often-frustrating, never-forgotten Philadelphia sports teams.

And no matter how much misery those teams caused us, he kept insisting that we needed to “believe” and use our “right brain” positivity for them. And so I did, because it was a blessing to join him in that hope.

He had that same abundance of hope regarding the different cancer treatments that extended his life and his quality of life.

Then came the point when the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do. And soon came the last phone call he tried to make to me, from his bed in hospice.

Seeing the missed call, I phoned him immediately, almost desperately, tapping into that “right brain” positivity that he would answer. And he did.

Hearing his voice, even though it was far weaker than usual, was a gift. So were the smiles and the laughs that came with our conversation. So were the ways we told each other, “I love you, my friend. Thank you.”

I cried when the call ended.

A few days later, one of his brothers texted me with the news that Jim had died “peacefully and gracefully” surrounded by his beloved wife Peggy and their children.

As I prayed for Jim and his family, I thought of the way that God makes his goodness and grace known in the world through our friendships.

I also thought of a column I wrote in 1986 when I worked for The Indianapolis Star. A reader had sent me his copy of the piece in the past year or so, and it has stayed on my work desk ever since. The column had this headline, “Friendship made in youth is special.”

“It’s a friendship with history,” I wrote. “A friendship that had its start in a time long before marriage, jobs, mortgages and children became part of the definition of our lives.

“Maybe you share such a friendship, the kind in which a conversation never seems to end, it just continues at a later date.

“Such friends usually are the ones who can make you laugh by merely raising an eyebrow or giving a certain look. They’re the friends who kid you mercilessly about your old romances. And they’re also the people you turn to when you need someone to listen.

“In a sense, it’s the best kind of friendship.

“One of the reasons that seems true is because it was formed in our youths. As you get older, your friends often are made through your spouse, your children, your career.

“In your younger days though, your friends are more a reflection of you. And when someone accepts you on those terms, the bond seems stronger.”

I was blessed to have that friendship with Jim.

I hope you have that kind of friendship, too. Most of all, I hope you cherish it for the great gift it is.
 

(John Shaughnessy is the assistant editor of The Criterion.) †