Losing Friends and now my Best Friend

As if it were yesterday, I remember being a kid and playing with all my friends in the neighborhood. Nearly every day we would engage in a football game or some other type of sport until we were throughly exhausted…and then some. We started early and continued throughout the day, always having so much fun that we never considered quitting, even for a moment, until our Moms all stuck their heads out of the doors of our homes and started calling us for dinner. “Timmy, supper time”, “Sammy, come on in for dinner”. “David, that’s enough football for today”. Usually, we would continue playing, though we knew we really had no choice but to go home and eat dinner. A second time our Mothers would try to reel us in but we still resisted. It seemed to us that we would never play together again if we went inside for the evening. Finally, the deeper and more threatening voices of our Fathers could be clearly heard. “Timothy Mark Zepin, get yourself home right now!”. “Salvatore (Sammy) Angelo Daly, don’t make me come out there!”. “David Allen Lippman, “I’m not telling you again”. Then, without further ado, we would all stop dead in our tracks, drop whatever we were doing, and run home as fast as we could before we got into big trouble.

Those really were the days! But I remember one day at supper, my Mom telling me that my best friend David and his family from across the street would be leaving the neighborhood soon. David’s father, Russell, had been offered a new job in California. He and his wife Edith, along with David, Susie Q (as my sister and I nicknamed her), and Robert would be moving there within the next couple of months. I really didn’t know how to deal with it. It was a long time before I grasped the reality that I would probably never see my friend David again. Of course, after some amount of grieving from the loss of my friend, and realizing that I just had to move on, I became best friends with Sammy (to his father, Salvatore Angelo). That’s what seems to happen when you’re a kid. You sort of instinctively move past these things.

These kinds of disappointments happened at various times with friends from childhood, through my teenage years, and into college. In my mind, I always perceived that wherever they were going, it had to be better or more glamorous than my small-to-midsized (yet beloved) city of Denver, Colorado. It didn’t matter whether it was a world-class city like New York or San Francisco, a more average-sized city such as Salt Lake or St. Louis, or even a small rural village in Illinois or Kansas. They were moving on to a new and exciting adventure, never looking back, while I was stuck here, stricken once again with losing a best friend and having to find a new one.

As I reached adulthood, I gradually came to know that a person didn’t necessarily have to lose a friendship just because a friend had chosen (or was forced) to move to a new city. Whether near or far, they only had to maintain contact with that person and they would still have the ability to talk on the phone and arrange to visit each other. It was even within the realm of possibility that one might relocate to the same city as their dear friend. In any event, not all relationships stay exactly the same when one of the parties moves away. Some relationships are jut as strong as ever, others fade away or change and, in some cases, the friends simply no longer remain compatible with each other.

I do have one great friend, my buddy Rich, who I have known for many, many years now. He and his wife, Sue, recently left Colorado and moved to the Chicago area (see, another friend abandons me!). We met in our early twenties, both having “secured” a temporary job (secured and temporary: that’s kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it?) moving furniture in an office building. We worked at a big company for several years and lived together as roommates. Eventually, we both found serious girlfriends, got married, had long-term jobs, and traveled forward on our individual paths. He and Sue have come back several times from Chicago to visit, allowing Rich and I to get together, relive our youthful memories, and resume our mutual goal of solving all the world’s problems. Needless to say, much work remains before that goal can be fully achieved.

All of this as a preamble to tell you about my best and most cherished friend in this world; my wife Suni. She and I have been together for almost 31 years, married for over 28 of them. We have had such a great life together! We hiked in the mountains, took walks in the city, traveled to enchanting destinations, cooked delicious food together, watched heart-wrenching movies and analyzed them, reminisced and laughed (and yes, sometimes cried) about our past experiences together. Most importantly though, we remained on the same path, studying the Bible together, praying together, and growing together in our Faith. But I believe the thing I always looked forward to the most, more than anything else, was waking up together, seeing her sweet face first thing each morning, and pondering what was in store for us in that new day (Psalm 118:24). This is not to say that we didn’t encounter our fair share of both “better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health, til..”. Regarding those wedding vows we made to each other, we experienced the full spectrum of life.

Now it appears that my best friend will be moving away soon to a new City. It’s very far away, I have no way to contact her, and I don’t know when I will see her again. Similar to when I was younger and my friends moved to a different city, I grieve again, but this time with much greater depth. In Genesis 2:24, the Bible says: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”. I really find that to be absolutely true! A Husband cannot be separated, without great suffering, from his wife (and of course, vice versa). Yes, they are two unique individuals, yet they are as one flesh, one entity. I don’t know how I will go on without her…but I must. I need to remember; when my childhood friends moved away they still existed, that she will still exist, and that she is simply going to a different, and much better Place. My plan now is to do the best I can while I’m still here, finish my life well, and cherish the Hope of moving to that same great City so I can see her again and spend time together.

Right now she is only getting ready to go, but I fear she will be on her way momentarily, and I’m already feeling so lost and despairing. I need to prepare myself. I may write more about this once I have recovered from her departure.