On Friendship and Breakfast: Remembering My Best Friend

On Friendship and Breakfast: Remembering My Best Friend

Preface: My best friend died three years ago on November 10, 2020. I wrote an essay on the morning of November 11, 2020, in tribute to him. Three years later, I still find it hard to believe he’s gone. Today, in remembrance of his passing, and in his honor, I am republishing an edited version of that essay. Rest in Peace, dear friend…

Today started just like any other day. I got up, made coffee, checked, and answered my email. Just like so many other of my days have started. Then the phone rang, and this ordinary day quickly turned into a very unordinary day – an incredibly sad day.

And I can honestly say it’s a day I’ve been dreading for months now.

This morning, the most ordinary of mornings, took a terrible turn when my phone rang. And when I heard the voice on the other end, my best friend’s wife, asking me “Are you sitting down?”, this most ordinary of mornings turned into one of those awful mornings that places itself on the calendar of sadness that I’ve kept in my mind since my mother died when I was ten years old.

This morning, it was my sorrowful duty to add the death of my best friend to that horrible and indelible calendar of the deaths of people who were close to me. The calendar I keep in my mind – the one that time can’t erase – the one I’ve lived with and carried with me since I was a skinny ten-year-old boy.

Now, I have one more loss to mark on it, one more date engraved on my memory along with all the others: my mom, my dad, my stepmom, my sister, my grandfather, my grandmother, and just two years ago, my other “southern” best friend, David, and, most recently, a beautiful baby granddaughter whose tiny life lasted less than 24 hours.

This morning I sadly added another death to this grim calendar — the death of my dearest friend. A friend I met quite accidentally in 1986.

Since, 1986, we’ve been having breakfast at least once a week. More recently, over the last few years, we’ve been meeting for breakfast twice a week -every Tuesday and Friday morning. We’ve met at various local restaurants for over 30 years, just about every single week.

In March of this odd year of 2020 – the pandemic reared its ugly head and restaurants shut down for inside dining. We did, for a while, do “tele-breakfasts”. We’d talk on the phone for an hour a couple of times a week. We called these tele-breakfasts. But we both missed getting together in person.

As the weather got nicer, we both wanted to get together for real in-person breakfasts again, but neither of us was ready to eat inside a restaurant with the pandemic all around. And both of us, he more than me, had pre-existing conditions so neither of us was inclined to take any chances.

Anyway, when the warm weather finally arrived in May, my friend opened what he sarcastically called the “CoronaVirus Inn”. He and his wife set up a facsimile of a restaurant in their oversized garage. And all through the summer, we had breakfast, twice a week, in the “CoronaVirus Inn” – just the two of us. I’d call him to take his order and then pick up food at a drive-through – depending on what food he ordered – and deliver it to his garage restaurant.

It wasn’t long after we started having breakfast in person again, that my friend learned he had cancer… lung cancer. At first, they told him it was just a small spot. The doctor didn’t seem to show much concern. But my friend learned the truth himself by looking at his medical chart on his online medical portal. He found out then his cancer was terminal. And then furious, he called his oncologist who finally told my friend the truth – he had a year to live – maybe eighteen months if he agreed to chemotherapy.

We talked about whether it would be worth going through chemo for another six months of life. He asked what I would do, and I said I’d try chemo and if it didn’t make me horribly ill, I’d keep doing it. But I pointed out how hard it is to put yourself in someone else’s place – especially when it comes to terminal cancer – or terminal anything really.

By now, his cancer was spreading, and he had to decide. He ended up doing chemotherapy. After a month or so they did a PET scan and it showed that while the cancer was shrinking slightly it had metastasized.

My dear friend was a survivor, I can tell you that much.

He had survived a liver transplant, a stroke, and a kidney transplant. He conquered all those major health problems, so as far as I was concerned, his will to live was going to beat this cancer – I just knew it. 

We continued our breakfasts at the “CoronaVirus Inn” – twice a week as usual. 

And then…

Last night, just four months after he learned about his terminal cancer diagnosis, my friend died. His breathing became labored and he was struggling hard to breathe. He was rushed to a local emergency room where a code was called and my friend’s brave fight for life ended.

So, this morning, which began as the most ordinary of mornings, was shattered by a phone call. A single phone call that left me with an empty place in my heart and a hole in my life that will never, ever be filled.

He was my friend and he stood by me through all the challenges and setbacks I’ve had. His friendship never wavered, never faltered, and never weakened. We were a lot younger when we met, and because he was ten years younger than me, I never thought I’d ever see this dreadful day.

He was my most loyal friend. He was the kind of friend everyone wishes they had – but very few ever do. And now he’s gone. And I don’t know how to process the loss. And trust me, I’ve suffered more than my share of losses in my life

It never gets easier.

And because of the pandemic and the age of his friends, his wife has decided that there will be no funeral – she said she would not want anyone to become infected or sick from attending a funeral.  Instead, she said, they will have a small family-only gathering before his cremation – and if I would like to come, I was welcome even though I’m not family.

I told her I would rather remember him the way I saw him on that Tuesday morning when I brought him breakfast — a “bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit” from McDonald’s  as he ordered

I’ll never forget our time together and I’ll never forget our breakfasts…

I brought a “USA Today” newspaper to almost every breakfast we ever had. It was the fodder for our conversations. And I want to remember him eating his breakfast and talking about our football picks from the previous weekend and laughing so hard at my picks because I was wrong so many times. But every football season picking college and pro games was our tradition. And we’d laugh at each other’s picks and sometimes argue.

And we talked about – and sometimes laughed at – some of the articles in the paper. And one of the funniest parts of breakfast was reading the TV Listings to him. Especially the Lifetime Movie Channel movies, which he despised. And because he hated them so much, I delighted in making sure I read the Lifetime Movie Channel movie listings for that night. He rolled his eyes… but I know he got a kick out of my insistence on reading them.

So, I will not be going to the family-only gathering before his cremation but I am honored to have been invited.  Instead, I will be remembering his laughter his humor, and his steadfast, loyal friendship that lasted almost 35 years. I will remember him picking on me during our last breakfast about my terrible football picks and my lack of knowledge about current movies and current Hollywood stars – I am more of a classic movie fan.

And I’ll remember his last words to me as I left him on Tuesday morning – I said… “See you Friday!” and he said, “See you Friday!” “Thank you!” And we both waved and I walked to my car and drove away.

I don’t know how many breakfasts we’ve had over the last 30+ years, but it must be in the thousands. And I can’t tell you how hard it is to grasp that after all those thousands of breakfasts, we never share another one.

What can I say? No words can express my sorrow. But I bet you know what I’m feeling, don’t you?

There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. I cannot even count the number of times when I almost picked up the phone to tell him something or the number of times I’ve thought – “well I’ll tell him at breakfast – he’ll love this!”

I will miss you, my friend, more than any words could ever say.

May you rest in peace always.

I will never, ever forget you.

My friend, it’s been three years since I lost you and three years since I wrote that — I still think of you almost every single day…