“Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.”  I am discouraged at the way the term “friend” is used so loosely today.  With social networking especially, society inclines us to believe that we have hundreds of “friends”.   This is a false and inadequate notion though.  “Friend”, like the word “love” should be reserved only for those people in our lives that exemplify the intended deep meaning behind these special words.

It’s been said that you can only count your true friends on one hand.  I feel a little more fortunate and blessed than most as I have five siblings that are my best friends, as well as the select few of no blood relation to me.  I can count my best friends on two hands.  Still, my circle is very small.

Those in my circle have added significant value to my life.  Their impact has contributed greatly to who I am today.  In reflection on the subject of friendship, I realize only a true friend can lend the objective influence we require to become better people.

Today is one of my best friends’ birthdays.  It’s a special day and has given me pause to meditate on the meaning of authentic, genuine friendship.  Clete Walker and I have been best friends for 17 plus years now.  Knowing him has made me a better person.  To account for each of the ways in which he’s been there for me and my family would require a novel, so I’ll leave you instead with just a few of the reasons having contributed to this enduring bond.

1. A healthy friendship is one where you can share your honest feelings without fearing the end of the relationship. We’ve had our disagreements, but we discuss things openly and candidly.  It enables us to see different perspectives.  The tough conversations will make you wiser about yourself and each other thus making you and your relationship stronger.  True friends respect each other’s differences and do not expect to agree on everything.
2. Tactful correction is one of the most difficult parts of friendship. Fault should be found in behavior, not people.  In 17 years, each of us have made choices in our lives that were in every essence of the word stupid hence leading to the need of harsh truth.  If you find someone who is brutally honest with you (in a constructive way), then hold on to this person.  People like that are hard to come by these days.  Especially in a modern world seemingly shaped by people’s fragile sensitivities.
3. Sincere praise is a treasured gift. The more you care about a friend, the more you will want to build them up.  Applaud your friends’ successes.  Encourage, lift and strengthen your friends.  Even small support can contribute to your friends accomplishing his or her big dreams.
4. Finally, true friendship is a result of someone listening always without judgment, speaking without prejudice, helping without entitlement, understanding without pretension and loving without conditions. Only the rarest and most special people in the world possess such valuable characteristics in their heart and soul.  If you’re fortunate and blessed to know such a person, never let them go.

Clete has done all of the above for me and so much more.  However, one of the most treasured and valued gifts ever given me was last year when my best friend was enduring the greatest challenge of his life—the death of his father.  I was trudging through some of my own valleys, certainly none of the magnitude he was combating; and yet, he was still there as a firm support and listening ear.  When you have a friend that helps you when they’re struggling too, that’s not help, that’s love—love in its purest form.

A friendship like the one Clete Walker and I share is distinct.  We’ve loved each other when the other was being unlovable, beared each other when the other was unbearable.  We’ve cheered the other when the world was criticizing, cried with and for each other, sat in silence together when there were just no words.

I read once that a friend should be mathematical.  Despite my hatred for mathematics this is one formula I understand and will happily compute the remaining days of my life.  “Friends should multiply our joy, divide our sorrow, subtract our pasts and add to our tomorrows.  We must calculate the need for such a friendship deep in our hearts and always be bigger than the sum of our parts.”

I pray that each of you are blessed enough in your life to have a mathematical friend or friends that epitomize the meaning of friendship in the way I have been blessed by Clete Walker’s exemplification.  Hang on to them; don’t take them for granted; be always grateful for them; and recognize that rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.