Friends Are Forever

When does friendship end?

Does it end when friends go their separate ways?

Does it end when years come in between?

Does it end when lifestyles and status in life change? 

Does it end when friends grow in different directions?

Does it end when friends embark on opposing careers? 

No.  Not with my friends lumped together into one name—XDYR.  

They're hither and yonder (200 or so of them), and we don't see each other as often as friends normally do.  But like stars up above—whether you see them or not—you know they're there.  Then on cloudless nights, they appear and twinkle.

Occasionally, rather sporadically, small groups of various permutations meet.  Two or three think up of a bright idea to get together and suggest a place and date.  Some hear about it, some don't.  Those who do sometimes reply, sometimes won't. 

A list materializes. But then it swings both ways: decrease or increase with regularity, until d-day comes.   

D-day this time was a Saturday.  In the coolest, greenest place close to my idea of  Shangri-la, twenty appeared and twinkled.  Changes were  noted quickly: grayer, thinner hair and thicker middle. 

 

But the warmth, the appetite for loud banter and laughter was exactly what it was over a decade ago when we huddled in the hallways of DYR or old eateries around Vito Cruz, after surviving another day of discussion on hair-splitting concepts and meetings with hair-raising clients.

 
The Saturday jokes went from scintillatingly witty to excruciatingly corny.  And as the conversation in ultra-high decibels went in all directions, it progressed from silly to silliest.   

And I thought, a day couldn't get any better. 

 

When old-friends—particularly those with whom I shared millions of cathartic moments in what, to me, was the world's most harrowing job—meet, one is made to relish globs upon globs of grace. 

That's why, while writing "Grace Found Me," I wanted to honor them with what keeps me busy (minus the stress) after I left DYR: words. On the Acknowledgment page I wrote . . . 

"With all the gratitude I have in me, may I single out those who are within the circles where I move today:

. . . XDYR, a group of feisty and irrepressible admen who defy age and reason.  On FB, e-mails, and occasional get-togethers—you make me remember, with affection, the golden years of yore that were my toughest years."

Happy New Year, my dearest Vito Cruisers!