My Friend Randy

I spoke to my childhood best friend the other day. His wife sent me a letter and said he had been trying to get in touch with me. (He only had my ClearPlay business card.) So I called him right away, only to find out he is dying of stomach cancer. Already bedridden, and with an evacuation tube, daily hospice care and morphine shots to ease the pain. Not good.

We spoke for a long time, reminiscing about our adventures growing up. We both spent a lot of time outdoors and we tried to remember many of our trips. We used to love to go downtown and visit the Army-Navy store, where we would gaze longingly at the cool camping supplies. We bought a lot of our own equipment, saving our money for sleeping bags, backpacks, mess kits and some very manly Rambo-like knives. And on weekends we would load up and camp, sometimes on islands in Minnesota lakes, sometimes out near his brother's place in Wrenshall, and once in -30 degree weather when we snow-shoed out to some beaver dams, and spent the night doing push-ups in our sleeping bags to keep from freezing to death. We have both maintained our love for the outdoors, and in that regard I guess my friendship with Randy was one of the more influential relationships of my life.

When I was last in Duluth I visited him and Mary Jo, his companion of 25 years (they were finally married last August). Randy made me a wonderful breakfast and we visited for a couple of hours before driving over to Tim's, where he met the family. My kids were immediately struck by his distinctive style in speech and movement, something that had changed little since we were in high school.

I asked him on the phone about insights from this experience. I suppose it was a stupid question, but I was genuinely curious about his perspective. His response was classic: "Well, except for the dying part, it's been great." What he meant was that he'd experienced a great outpouring of love, some from unexpected sources. He's been touched by that.

It was good to talk to him, and I'll call him again tomorrow. I sense there isn't much time left and I have a few things that I'd like to say. Plus a little surprise for him, which I have been working on this weekend. I've been fiddling with a screenplay for the past few years. I had named the lead character Randy, after my old friend, although I had never shared it with him. So I am going to finish the latest draft tonight and send it to him. It's a small thing, but I think he'll enjoy it.

One just never knows what is around the bend on life's road.