True Friends are Forever

I re-discovered some old friends over the past 4 days and found them both to be exactly as I remembered them the last time I saw them....17 years ago.

We originally met Rick and Martha along with their son's Michael and John the first part of 1993, after Rick had taken a job running a division at our mutual former company. Although he and I had come from different countries and had grown up in substantially different environments, we became instant friends, as did Martha and my wife Sue. 

Over the next 2 1/2 years, we would get together several times outside of work with our families and enjoyed numerous activities together including cook outs, canoe trips, birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, camp fire weenie roasts and so on. Then, about as suddenly as our Canadian friends had appeared in our lives, they were gone, moving back to their hometown of Toronto. To say the least, we were all very sad to see them go. 

We stayed in sporadic contact over the next several years, exchanging occasional phone calls or leaving messages from time to time on the other's answering machine, but we had no actual face to face contact and for some reason, hadn't connected on Facebook or any other social media site.

Fast forward to this past Friday evening and as soon as we saw each other at the airport, it was like no time at all had gone by. Although it had been 17 years since the 4 of us had laid eyes on one another, we instantly took up right where we left off in 1995. We found it difficult to believe our 4 collective children were now 25-30 years old and not 8-13, but everything else in our friendship had remained the same. In short, we had a great time re-connecting with our wonderful old friends.

Early this morning after dropping Rick and Martha off for their return trip home, I drove away from the airport with a smile on my face and a long held belief re-affirmed in my heart: a true friendship should be cherished above all possessions.