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“We Are Gonna Be Friends” ALWAYS
Even when one of us is no longer here, alive…
It’s taken me some time to process the very recent loss of a friend from decades ago which now feels like a lifetime ago. I discovered this news just fairly recently: that my dear friend Alan passed away the day before Thanksgiving. The irony of this was not lost on me, as the very day of Thanksgiving, a dear friend was driving in from Delaware to spend the holiday weekend with me. In hindsight, I’m glad that I didn’t know about Alan’s passing until later, as I’m not sure that I would have been able to cope and to truly enjoy and focus on the time spent with my friend then.
How did Alan and I meet? I can’t quite remember. All I DO know is that we DID meet, probably through a mutual friend of ours. The time I spent with Alan was among some of THE best times that I have ever had, as one can only have in their young adulthoods before the dreaded creeping responsibility of adulthood makes itself known in unwanted ways not too soon afterwards. Alan and I were always riding our bikes along with our Sony Walkman’s — we rode anywhere and everywhere, but always together. For so long, it was just us: together, attached in that strangely peculiar way that people are when they just meet and immediately and without any hesitation become the very best of friends.
