A longtime friend of mine just moved on from these parts.... to the other side of the world, literally. We’d been tight 30-plus years, since we first wandered into here from opposite directions. At this writing, don’t really know if or when I’ll see him again. You learn with age nothing’s certain but the passage of time, and that’s limited.
Earlier in my life I might have saddened over such a departure but I’m older now and take all things in stride. In his case, he left as soon as his draining divorce was finalized. He needed to reinvent himself after a suffocating relationship. At least that’s how I see it: like so many in broken marriages he suffered real pain, at the same time loving that person and situation which was also the root of his grief. I did all a friend can do, listen and help talk him through some of the rougher spots.
At the beginning of our friendship we spent many miles and hours arguing our respective views of the world. The thing we most shared was a love of the outdoors, and constantly discovering its myriad fancies with long hikes through the countryside.
We were friends enough to agree to disagree on a whole range of issues, from politics to science to religion. I remember with a smile how he, a scientist, chided me once for allowing the possibility a perpetual motion machine could be built.
We had our last hike a few days before he left, on a large tract of nearby public land he had not visited before. Had he not left, we would have returned there again and again. We still may, if his journey points back this way.
In leaving, he shed this old life like a snake sheds its skin. In that complete break he wanted to make he gave me the truck which has served him so well for years. A little rusted and banged up but better than mine.
And to give someone a working truck in the country— I guess that’s as true a gesture of friendship as one can make.
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