“So what do we affect during our lifetime? What,
ultimately, is our legacy? I believe, in most cases, our legacy is our friends.
We write our history onto them, and they walk with us through our days like
time capsules, filled with our mutual past, the fragments of our hearts and
minds. Our friends get our uncensored questions and our yet-to-be-reasoned opinions.
Our friends grant us the chance to make our grand, embarrassing, contradictory
pronouncements about the world. They get the very best, and are stuck with the
absolute worst, we have to offer. Our friends get our rough drafts. Over time,
they both open our eyes and break our hearts.
Emerson wrote: “Make yourself necessary to someone.” In a
chaotic world, friendship is the most elegant, the most lasting way to be useful.
We are, each of us, a living testament to our friends’ compassion and
tolerance, humour and wisdom, patience and grit. Friendship, not technology, is
the only thing capable of showing us the enormity of the world.”
–
Steven Dietz