Sometimes a friend leaves unexpectedly.
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| The Stutz Bearcat - looking at it, I was in 'communion' with my friend. |
That sudden and unexpected exit leaves those of us still
sitting at the table with a strange hollowness and a legion of answered
questions; our friend took with him much of the knowledge that enriched our
breadth and depth.
Sometimes such a sudden departure drives a re-examination of
personal values and beliefs manifesting thoughts about what importance we put on
a scheduled, but relaxed and casual lunch.
To approach such a lunch with the distinct sense of fatalism
would in fact probably be fatal for the friendship that initiated the
gathering.
Lunch with a friend is, in most instances, not a pessimistic
affair, rather quite the reverse and so how do you celebrate the friendship,
enjoy the company and yet do it joyously knowing full well that the randomness
of life could intervene removing you or another, anytime, from the list of
dinners.
Any antidote to such a dilemma is as different as those
involved, but curiousity can help dislodge it from the shadows; curiousity
spiced with humour, compassion, care, consideration and interest in what it is
that ignites a friend’s passions.
Such values are not personality specific, but their
application hinges on the root of friendship, trust, and so the advancement of
any friendship, fleeting or enduring, hinges on the richness of that trust.
My friend, who left without warning, practiced a trade in
which trust was the driver and strangely while trained in skills about caring
for the frailties of the human body, privately he was passionately interested
in the hard-edge mechanics of motor cars, in fact anything with wheels.
Trusting my friend’s judgement I visited the newly
established Shepparton Motor Museum, in which he had been deeply involved and
was in fact delivering his latest purchase (a rather old French moped) when he
took his leave.
Walking in the door my eyes fell upon a beautifully restored
Stutz Bearcat from early last century. It was not his type of car, I suspect,
as he was taken by beautiful and different European cars from later in the
century, but as it oozed the perfection, the attention to detail and the
mechanical sophistication of its era, I was, for a few minutes, in communion
with my friend.
That sense of closeness remained as I wandered about admiring
the wonderful collection of cars, motorcycles and bicycles – the museum wasn’t
built for that purpose, but for me it was like a memorial to my friend.
Death is the only certainty in life and the embrace of
friendship can enrich what is an uncertain journey and should that chair at the
dinner table be left unexpectedly empty, recall that the randomness of life is
non-negotiable pressing the belief that every moment matters.
