This was taken about a year and half ago. These are the best people (minus two who could not be there) a person could ask for to claim as friends freshman year in college. I had to take early leave from these wonderful friends after only two years with them for reasons I may or may not discuss here another time. We allowed twenty years to pass before we were all able to get together again. I hate that another year+ has passed without seeing them all again. We have managed gatherings of twos and threes for which I am grateful. I count this group one of my many blessings.
If - Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools
1 comment:
Bo, it's strange the distortion of time. I reconnected a few years ago with a boyhood friend with a series of e-mails I hadn't seen in 30 plus years. It was like we were 16 again at least in my mind. I also had every intention to reconnect in person but the next week or month never came.
Three weeks ago my friend was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Again I procrastinated. My rationale was he needed to receive treatment and time to adjust to his newly discovered condition.
Time ran out for him. He died Sunday. Sudden and final and now I'm sitting here unable to sleep at 1:00 AM feeling really crappy and more than a little sorry for myself about my failure to go see him. Another missed opportunity, another self failure which can't be undone and realizing how our time here is so fleeting and precious and so unforgiving if you don't act and all the while still wondering if I'll let another similar opportunity slip away leading to even more regret.
I won't give you the obvious advice but true friends are irreplaceable. I just wish I would have realized it sooner and got off of my ass.
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