What is a friend you may ask. Broad question and lots of different possible answers. What is life you may occasionally consider. I have an answer to that. Someone once gave me this line and it works for me in terms of how things have played out. ‘Life is series of adventures and friends are people you share them with’!
Good friends are precious as they add an extra perspective to things. Value them highly. Friends allow you to plan adventures. They allow you to be brave, bold, carefree. The adventure will be coloured by their presence as they will be the reflection of your experience. They will be the mood music. When the adventure is done the sharing of the same will be a fusion of yours and their experience. The memory is best if it can be shared and relived.
This week I have an onerous task to perform. I will be carrying a good friend on his ‘last journey’. It makes me achingly sad to reflect on his passing but as I do I can recall some very special memories that I will carry myself through the rest of my life. Phil Bayliss shared many days of cycling with me and Liz. We swam in the sea with him from the most perfect of beach huts he owned on the Devon coast. This was no ordinary athlete in fact as a runner when he was young he was a race winner. It was, however, in later life that our mutual adventures gelled.
Phil and I, along with some other friends, completed Ironman Barcelona. We finished the race within 10 minutes of each other (due in truth to an injury he was carrying) The memory I have of the meal we shared at the finish line I can almost reach out and touch. In the bliss of exhaustion and achievement we looked each other in the eyes. I probably shed tear, as I do. We raised a glass to each other in toast of a major achievement.
Some years later Phil was there agin. Different friends but maybe a bigger challenge. 185 miles of cycling along the famous Milan San Remo bike race. That we took part at all was maybe a mistake. When we got toMilan at the start we realised just what challenge we faced. However we group of friends faced the thing down and we made it. In an alley in San Remo another toast and other look of mutual praise.
Not everyone races in ironman or takes on bike challenges. We each have our own set of priorities and challenges to take on. However what ever you do I expect that you too have a special friend of if you are very lucky friends. If you do treasure these people because they are worth many times the others. Hold them close. Care for them and remember to tell them how much they mean to you. You can’t overdo it.
I would dearly love to have said a special thank you to Phil but I did not get the chance. Perhaps on Wednesday I will whisper my thanks into the coffin. I hope he hears me wherever he is.
Tales of a Life Well Lived 