He Was my Friend

There are a lot of people in your life that you call friend. After a while everyone you know is a “friend of yours”.  Life goes on and after awhile you have a very large circle of friends. At least that’s what it seems. 

But every now and then, probably only a few times in your life, you meet someone that really becomes a ‘true friend’. The rest, good people all, are really just acquaintances.  Oh, you might go out for a drink once in a while, go on vacation together or even visit from time-to-time, but how many of them would you really miss after a few weeks …… sad to say not many.

But, there are the exceptions. Everyone gets a few shots at a true friend. It doesn’t mean you necessarily get to keep them but they do come into your life. And while they are there they are a treasure. It’s the person that lights up your inner soul when you are in there company. The one you look forward to seeing no matter what else is going on in your life at the time.

I had a friend once that fit that description. I’ll call him Jack, not his real name. We came from very different backgrounds and wound up working together for a few years. It was a privilege to know him. He was the guy who always smiled when he saw you coming. When he asked you how you were doing he really meant he wanted to know. No mater what the circumstances he could find a bright side. Commiserating in laughter on the day-to-day events of our lives was one of the great pleasures we shared.

At one time Jack and I both lost a lot of money in the stock market. I was in a pretty bad funk about it because it was not caused by lousy stock picking but rather a lousy CEO (I think he is still in jail). Anyway, Jack leans back and looks up at the sky and says, “It’s not so bad. If they let us work until we are eighty-two we can make up the money. He was serious! With Jack there was nothing that couldn’t be overcome.

It didn’t mater what happened; if cars broke down, kids ran amuck or wives were being unreasonable, he took it all in stride. In those few years he changed my attitude about a lot of life’s little curve balls. And I thank him for it (except I am still not happy we lost all that money in the market).     

After not too long I left that job but we still used to get together. We had a ritual breakfast on Tuesday mornings at eight thirty. Coffee and rolls in the plaza. It was the high point of the week for me except for one Tuesday.  My schedule was interrupted by an unexpected commitment at my new job so I cancelled our breakfast that morning.

The date is easy to remember, it was September 11th, 2001. Jack and I had worked on the 97th floor of the North Tower in World Trade Center and he was still there. If I had not had to break our breakfast get together he would have slipped out of work before the first plane hit.

I watched the towers burn that day and knowing the building well I also knew that there was no way down and no way up as long as the fire raged. When the North Tower Antenna plunged through the middle of the building signaling the implosion I knew all those people went down with it. I relive it every time they replay it on TV.   

I miss him still and I know I always will no mater how many years pass. But I also know that Jack is in a better place and the son-of-a-gun probable found a bright side to the whole thing as he went down with the tower.

Funny thing though, a few weeks before I left that job we eat lunch out side in the Trinity Church Yard. It’s kind of park-like with paths and benches and such but it is also a grave yard (solders of the Revolution and all berried there).  But I remember it well, we are on the bench and he turns to me with a big smile and says, “You know, I have the feeling that I am shopping for real estate”. He usually included me in his thought but not that day, he never said “we”. And you know, he may very well be there, in the dust of the tower. His body was never found.