Friends, Friends, Friends... And My Best Friend

In my last post I mentioned that I didn’t like the words “quality of life”. That’s because when someone, particularly a doctor, talks to a cancer patient about quality of life s/he is really saying “enjoy it while you can because you don’t have much left.” Although I don’t like hearing “quality of life” I sure do like experiencing it. And I got more of it over the past few days. On Friday we were visited by Carol and Denis, our friends from Georgia. They were joined by Dina, another friend whom we haven’t seen for too long. It was an awesome night. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit. Today we had lunch with our friends Bruce and Rhonda. Bruce and I go way back although we don’t see each other often enough. Bruce and I have always been able to talk; about important things and unimportant things. That hasn’t changed. Rhonda, whom I haven’t known as well or for as long, is the perfect conversationalist and as I mentioned in a previous post she is a great person. I’ve come to realize that these special visits with friends we don’t see often tend to stand out and I write about them. I tend to overlook the “day to day” routine encounters with friends that are around all the time. That’s not right. They are very special too. We see our friends Linda and Phil fairly often and enjoy our time with them immensely. Their kids are great too and often we’ll all be together just enjoying the company. Once a month I get to enjoy poker night with seven good friends. I have been playing with some of them for more than 25 years. All of them are great guys and I look forward to our games as well as seeing some of them away from the poker table from time to time. We live in a great neighborhood. Everyone on the street is a friend and we see them regularly. Sadly we just lost Bob who has been a friend since I moved here more than 30 years ago. There's my good friend Vince who I see and speak to regularly. He is a lot like me, has a great sense of humor, and brightens my days often. And where would I be without my best friend…. Trrrrr? That’s Terry for those of you who don’t know us well. Not only does she give me daily quality of life, she also makes the special occasions special. When people come to visit, my suggestion that we keep it simple and order pizzas doesn’t cut it. Terry prepares a nice dinner, even baking the dessert, not to mention the cleaning before and after. She has contributed special dishes when it’s my turn to host the poker game. In a couple of weeks she’ll host a birthday party for Linda. She goes out of her way to make these occasions enjoyable for me. I’m going to keep suggesting the pizza because I’d like more people to come visit and I don’t want to burden Trrrrr but I probably won’t win out. Cherish your friends. I do. ----------------------------------------------------------------