Friends

 

“Living in a vacuum sucks.”
  - Adrienne E. Gusoff

I don’t think that anyone would want to live in a vacuum. To live wholly within oneself would not only be a very lonely existence but a total waste of time.  That’s why friends are so important.  Friends are perhaps one of the most precious gifts that we have.  Friends come and go over the years, but we never really forget real friends.  My first two friends as a child in post-war England were blind in one and two eyes respectively, from wartime bombing.  But we played as equals until I moved with my parents to Canada. I had two good friends in high school but after graduation we went our separate ways and I never saw them again, but I still remember them. As an only child, I went to Royal Military College and was immersed in 500 potential friends.  Some of them did become my friends, and several of my classmates are now my friends but not necessarily the same friends as before.  In the Navy, I made more friends and some of them became and remain very close friends.  I always considered my wife as my best friend.  I couldn’t understand how you could love someone and be with them for a long time if they were not a best friend.

“Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.”
  - Judith Martin

So, what makes a friend?  First of all, friendship entails respect. A friend must be someone you can relate to and converse with.  Conversation leads to better understanding of the person and appreciation of them as individuals.  It is not important to fully agree with each other, but you must both respect each other’s point of view.  Common interests are a good way of bonding in a friendship whether it’s sports, books or just watching movies that you can both enjoy. I consider my three children as close friends, but they have busy lives of their own, and besides, two of them live far away. Weekly Zoom calls try and keep us close. To be a good friend you must be prepared to stand by a friend in their troubles.  During my struggles with depression, I had one friend who stood by me at a critical moment.  With his support, I was able to overcome that critical time and felt much better.  I hope that I have done and will do so again such things for others.  A friend should bring you enjoyment when doing things together.  But it will not be enjoyable all of the time.  Deep friendship brings moments of stress and acrimony.  But real friends work through such things and try and remain friends.

I am writing this because I have a new friend.  After a year of missing my wife, Denee, and feeling very lonely, I needed someone or something. We met each other at a very prosaic place and event, agreed to have coffee and built a friendship from there.  She lives a couple of doors away from me and this leads to making it easy to see each other.  We have talked a lot and learned about each other’s past and present.  Our likes and dislikes.  Our prejudices and preferences.  We have learned to respect all of those things.  It has quickly made our friendship deeper.  I still have a lot of friends, but living in a new city, none of them are close by.  I cannot interact with them on a regular basis.  That’s why this new friend is so valuable.

I hope that all of you have a lot of good friends and that you work at keeping that friendship alive and healthy.  I could not imagine a life with no friends.  Could you?

“When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.”
  - John Ruskin

Canada Day

Canada Day 2023, the 156th anniversary of the birth of this country. I remember when it was called Dominion Day because that was what Canada first became, a dominion. It’s also the beginning of the summer season, “Summertime and the livin’ is easy”. Well, not for everyone.  There are still too many dispossessed, homeless, discriminated against, and sufferers of physical or mental health challenges.  And too many people have no access to primary care providers, mental health help and necessary support.  As on every Canada Day, a number of new Canadians were presented with their Canadian citizenship.

There appears to be an increase in rage in this country, not helped by some political leaders.  You only have to read some letters to the editor or the comment section of online news stories to get a sense of that rage.  Renewed rage against the LGBTQ community.  Rage against immigrants.  As an immigrant myself, I take exception to that.  I keep wondering if they expect me and other first-generation Canadians to go back to where we came from.  Does my almost 28 years of military service to Canada count for anything?  As for the LGBTQ community, I wonder why this seems to have arisen again after what seemed years of acceptance.  Other discriminatory practices seem to be given new life lately.  Discrimination against Asian people, against African Canadians, against Muslims and against Indigenous peoples seems to be on the rise.  I always thought that Canada was a welcoming and accepting place.  We once prided ourselves on not having the racial problems of our neighbour to the south.  This no longer seems to be the case.

But I’m an optimist, perhaps naively so.  Probably like most or, hopefully all, of my readers, I love Canada.  It is such a beautiful place.  You only have to travel almost anywhere in this country to admire its beauty.  On the whole, the people are friendly and helpful.  As immigrants, it welcomed my parents and I and gave us an opportunity to prosper. That’s why I remain optimistic that Canada will grow from a good country to a great country.  We have some great things to reflect on.  Our military prowess in two world wars, Korea, and Afghanistan, plus our peacekeeping successes.  Our acceptance of refugees from all parts of the world when there was a real need, plus the prosperity we have allowed many of them achieve.  There are so many Canadian successes, whether in medicine, architecture, the arts, engineering (or as those of us in that business like to say, injunring), Arctic development, and many other endeavours. 

But to become really great, Canadians must work and live more closely in the best interests of the country. We must get over our prejudices and divisions.  We must become more patriotic (perhaps not so overboard as our American cousins), more tolerant, and take more pride and interest in our institutions.  We must stop listening to those who, for their own purposes, say that Canada is a bad place, a failed country, a loser. We’re not and never have been.  We just don’t pay enough attention to our own strengths and place in history.  We let other countries define our culture and our history.  We now have over 40 million willing souls to help Canada become a better place.  Let’s get going and do it.