A Most Valuable Asset

Good friends––a most valuable asset. When you find them, hang on to them. They can be more helpful, more encouraging than family members. 

How can you keep them? Look to their actions. They are models. Treasure them. Speak well of them, often. If you’re a writer, a poet, a singer, an artist, feature them in your work. They deserve it. Others may benefit from seeing what you have found. My novel, Baggage burdens., is generously sprinkled with examples of good friends.

An excellent friend in Baggage burdens. is Thomas. He’s the most trusted friend to Joseph and to Joseph’s Uncle Mike. Thomas started as a farmer worker for Mike. By the end of Mike’s life, Thomas is Mike’s prime caregiver. Mike asks Thomas to mentor Joseph, Mike’s nephew, who inherits Mike’s farm. Thomas not only instructs Joseph on being a farmer but also a market gardener. He’s the best man at Joseph’s wedding and years later a principal adviser on solving Joseph’s marital problems. Thomas’s friendship is truly a most valuable asset.

 Stories of Mike and Joseph working together, and then Joseph and Thomas doing the same entertain Jill for most of the evening. Thomas’s telling about the death of Butch, Joseph’s dog, moved Jill the most.

Thomas and several neighbors were rebuilding a workshop for Joseph. The old one had burned down. A truck carrying lumber spilled its load. Butch was found beneath it.     “You were devastated,” said Thomas, looking at Joseph. Joseph had nodded momentarily, reliving the event.

“Two years earlier, I lost Uncle Mike. Then Butch. All I had left was you and Rebecca,” he said, still sad.

Thomas sat with Joseph while the other men picked up the lumber. Then Thomas and Joseph dug a shallow grave for Butch near the spot where he died. After temporarily marking the grave with a stick, Thomas sat with Joseph for the rest of the afternoon by the grave as Joseph talked about his lost friend.

Jill can’t help thinking that Joseph, together with Thomas, could manage any challenge. They seemed a perfect fit.

Then Thomas asked why he was picked to be Joseph’s best man at his wedding. Again Joseph answered from his heart. “You’re the best person I could think of who would see to it that everything at the wedding worked smoothly.”

Thomas paraphrased Reverend Swanson’s charge to the best man and maid of honor. 'You’re the two people that this couple most trusts and respects, the ones most likely to be lifetime friends. You’re not fair-weather friends who disappear in troubling times. Your responsibility for the success of this marriage doesn’t end with this wonderful celebration. When rough waters threaten to sink this marriage, Joseph and Jill now expect you two to do all in your power to keep it afloat.’

“You remember that?”

Joseph nodded.

Thomas continued setting the tone for the dinner invitation. “As brothers in Christ, I am bound to help support you in the vows that you made before God. I can tell you without a doubt that Rebecca will feel the same way.” Stressing his role as godparent, best man, and Christian brother, Thomas asked Joseph to keep his promise and come for supper Sunday so he and Rebecca could talk to Joseph about his marriage.

 Joseph thanked Thomas for being up front about the dinner. He warned his friend that his mind was made up. He was leaving Jill. At the same time, he knew his caution wouldn’t deter Thomas. Thomas didn’t believe in divorce. The church didn’t believe in divorce. No one in the church had a divorce.

haiku capsule:                 

model treasured friend

one whose discipline you heed

a fitting tribute.

Next blog: Then there is 

a Really Good Friend