What Friends Are For

I was fortunate to make longstanding friends at college. When I was dropped off in August 1958 as a freshman at Rutgers, I knew no one and was at a place I had never visited before. As soon as possible, I attached myself to a group of buddies with similar backgrounds and career ambitions. Those early connections endured. During our college years, we bonded over our studies, exams, fraternity parties, and then graduate school. Those college and post-grad years bridged the gap between adolescence and adulthood as we figured out our futures. Our friendships have evolved since the heady college days. Many of these fellows are still around, and fortunately, we are able to visit, play golf together, discuss books we have read, and be there for each other when loved ones are lost. One of my close friends, Mel, recently asked me to take a drive with him to Philadelphia to visit a classmate who is in need of some brotherly love while he deals with his wife’s illness. Not long ago, Mel and I went to the funeral of a fraternity brother in Florida. Together with many of our friends and family, we were able to share stories and humorous anecdotes about our lost companion. At this stage in life, this is what friends are for—a shared, happy past to offset life’s sad moments. My college friends, like me, are all in their mid-eighties, and we are all dealing with aging issues. Yet when we are together, we brush off our present ills and look back and laugh at who we were and how we became the people we are today. Yes, this is what friends are for.