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What is a true friend? Describe? Use Observation, experience and knowledge


Randall Victoria May 24, 2007
A True Friend

An associate of mine once told me that a true best friend is the heterosexual equivalent of your spouse: faithful and doting, dependable and long-suffering, compassionate and supportive. He described this platonic relationship and I sat nodding as my mind wandered. A true friend is boundless, I thought; it is all this dunderhead has mentioned and more. When you have become amazingly adept at finishing each other’s sentences, when their most agonizing moments break your heart, when you forget there was ever a time you did not know each other that is when you know you have a true friend.
My best friend, theoretically speaking is an amalgamation of my older sister and brother. I have known them all my life and what one lacks the other has. When my sister fails to find humor in the dissection of all of her stuffed animals, then my brother shares in my revelry. When I am “protected” by my over zealous brother/bodyguard my sister plays mediator and comforter. Over the years, we have developed a closeness that is rare amongst siblings of any age. We have played together many nights in our home after being rounded up by our parents, being told to go to bed, unable to resist our fondness of fun and games. The age difference was not an issue in our home, neither was gender and sibling rivalry was nonexistent. We were all just best friends.
No love quite measures up to familial love, but in my brother and sister I believe I have found its superior. In the fifth grade I met a girl that I would later call my best friend. We spent every waking hour together, playing together, studying together, and even going to church on Sundays together. By the time we were in middle school I had learned how volatile and fragile such ties could be. One small dispute shot our three years of friendship to hell, for lack of a more appropriate expression. I have only known the diehard loyalty of a true friend from my brother and sister alone.
I have experienced both ends of the spectrum when comparing good friends with not-so-good friends and my brother and sister are the only ones who consistently come out on the better end, but in August of two thousand and five our friendship was put to the ultimate test. Around that time we were set on diverging paths, each of us with our own concerns. My brother was killed and I was lost. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so empty inside. It was that dire need to be whole again that brought about the greatest epiphany of true love and friendship. In a spout of befuddled sobbing I wished it were me who had died instead of him, but almost as quickly as this nascent wish began to emerge it was pummeled by the most bittersweet comfort. I suddenly could not imagine him in my place, abject and despondent, mourning me as deeply as I mourned him. I loved him too much, more than anything else. My sister and I however, have become closer because of this and I have yet to find another friend like these two.
It is no easy task sharing your life and love and every sentiment with another person, but this is true friendship in essence. I am fortunate to have it because it is so rare and perfect.

Easy to Ignore

Easy to Ignore
A frigid dark knight
Trots along a damp dirt road
On a night characterized by the blistering cold.
Drizzle becomes obscure as it leaves Light’s grace,
But proudly reappears upon the knight’s face.
Composed and bold he sits atop his horse
Refusing to dismount until he covers his chosen course.
He spots, 23miles into his trek
A maiden running towards him, febrile and wet
She stops him in his tracks demanding that he rest.
He glances askance and does not acquiesce
She continues to beseech him on behalf of his health
But he replies resolutely “ Not for all this world’s wealth”
His current state and ceaseless rate bring her so much pain,
Aware of this the knight on his current course remains.
He doesn’t once make eye contact
It’s as though he’s made of stone,
But this maiden she knows when he cracks a priceless gem will abscond.
She continues to freeze, slinging in vain emotional pleas
Sans words he orders his horse to proceed
She lingers behind abject in defeat and falls crying to her knees.
After a stint she raises her head,
But looks not in his direction
She has no doubt that he’ll come about in his own discretion
So she walks home alone a bit mortified at the feelings she’s shone
And he continues on his way,
Trying to forget yet taken aback by the maiden’s heartfelt display.
For Valentine’s Day I’d like the Knight to reconsider. ☹

Start of Day

Day Starts at Vermont & Beverly

When I board the train in North Hollywood the sun is hidden away

And my arrival at Vermont and Beverly marks the beginning of Day.

Sirius, Canopus, Rigil Kentarus, guardians of the night

Have no place at this intersection and can not thrive in its light,

But I shuffle towards the elevator, and slip in as the doors nearly close

I Consider my fellow commuters and file into its rows

We sink into the earth, but the heavens can not trail,

So in its place we form our own from the air we exhale

In a flurry, I can never tell how, in the recesses of the earth

I travel beneath the cities, with my finger tracing its girth

The shuttle I’m in screeches at first, but soon settles into a hum

And with a ding of the doors I spring from my seat, laden with graff art and gum

I climb up the stairs, the first of the pair in a tizzy I must admit

Because I never know what the day will bestow once I reach its summit

But, repeating the mantra of an Anonymous Alcoholic I stumble up the second flight

I wince as I rise, closing my eyes, being blinded by Day’s light

I reach the top, Beverly & Vermont and inhale its emboldening air

I stretch out both arms in attempt to absorb Great Odin’s entire glare.