Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
Funny thing happened today while I was reminiscing with my best buddy Kim.
We were talking about our Christmas experiences. He was trying to get some food in. I was soaking in a nice warm cozy jacuzzi. Talk about the miracle of instant transcontinental mobile communication.
And one thing led to another and I realized that, without knowing, and despite living an ocean and a continent apart, we had become tighter and better friends than we ever had been before.
And God knows, we’ve been through a lot together. Somehow, Kim has always been there for me. Through thick and thin, he was there at my beck and call, whenever I needed a buddy, a mate, a Friend.
Our relationship, though strong as it were back then, had not yet reached the age of maturity.
For that to happen, I had to leave, depart. And on that fateful day I can’t take back and don’t regret, but hate myself for it, I told my friends, Kim included, these mean and inconsiderate words:
Guys, we’ve had a good run but I’m not coming back to this blasted country. I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss you a lot. Good bye!
Me, Otopeni international airport, June 2006
And there I said it and left them disconsolate, with tears in their eyes. An era had come to an end.
Me, a monster, a selfish monster, who had taken their love and prospered on it, had quit on my best friends. I turned my back on my best friend, Kim.
And yet the man forgave me. That is the measure of his character.
Writing this I have tears in my eyes. Only now I realize how stupid and mean and crazy I was to leave like that.
For, you can’t know this, but I had broken the news of my departure to the New World only a few days before jumping on the very plane that transported me to another unfamiliar continent, away from my friends.
In this process, I almost managed to do the unthinkable. I almost lost all my friends. For in their tears I failed to see their realization that I was the one quitting on them by leaving them behind.
I now know, thanks to my committing these thoughts to paper, that’s exactly how and why I pushed another friend away from me, and almost lost a second one for a long time.
I am a fool for not seeing this earlier. You see, folks, most of the bad stuff that happens to people is due to their mistakes. But, since people almost always blame others for their errors, it takes a lifetime, sometimes an eternity, to figure out what’s what.
By then, friendships are lost, friends may die, and people end up alone. All because they didn’t want to own their paths.
But Kim was different. You see, and I swear to God, I am not putting the man on a pedestal when I say this.
You see, Kim always understood why I had to leave then and there. Kim has always stood by my decision and supported me from afar in my undertaking to make a life for myself on a continent where a new life could be had by a strong man, who had Luck on his side.
For luck has always been on my side. It was luck and Providence who supplied me with a wonderful wife, who gave me a splendid daughter.
It was blind luck and Providence who sent Kim to save me from a bunch of bullies who were kicking the schnutt out of me, 33 years ago.
Kim has been a true friend to me all this time. Never wavering, never abandoning his buddy, never one to be mean or sorrow.
He is my brother from another mother.
He, as well as Alex and Sanducu, were directly responsible for my staying in school, and getting the education that I got. They are responsible for the man I am today as much as I am.
I couldn’t have done it without them.
I only wish I was richer so that I could show them how grateful my heart is for their being, and for their being my friends.
Götterdämmerung 