The older I get, the more profoundly I understand certain concepts about life. There are a LOT of people in the world, and a great many of them suck. Truthfully, I've known this since I was a kid; my dad made sure I heard about it frequently. The lesson he neglected to teach me, however, was that for all the selfish, ignorant, intolerant, hateful, and downright stupid people there are in the world, there are also a precious few who are unspeakably awesome. My uncle Gary has always been one of those people. He is selfless, generous, fun, and usually content to be happy. He can be late, or not show up sometimes, but when he is around, he is great at reminding me the value of never acting your age.
My cousin Jane is another person who belongs to this elite club. She and I grew up together, although never in the same city, and we shared the common interests of roller skating, Christmas, and Hello Kitty, among many other things. Today, she remains what I consider to be one of my very best friends, and is the epitome of kindness, strength, patience and perseverance. She's suffered many health problems, some of which would have been the end of someone less resilient, but she has never lost her faith in the world. She is also one of the best people on the planet to share a laugh with, and is a master of playing board games. I would also trust her with anything.
There is another person who belongs on this list, for more reasons than I can even recount. We met when we were eight years old and both attended San Mateo Elementary. He was the cute little blond boy who sat behind me in Ms. Green's class and admired my drawing of Roger Rabbit on the first day of 2nd grade. I was painfully shy and considered him easily to be the cutest kid in school. He walked down the halls with me as we joked about the other's "brain being on vacation" for whatever reason of the day. He said hi to me at Friday night skating when the girls rolled around the cafeteria and the boys played Foosball in the hallway. He even invited me to his 8th birthday party at Skate N' Space and was very diplomatic when the couples skate was announced and he told me he couldn't hold my hand because he didn't feel right about it at that point in time. His mom would always honk her huge, blue truck when they drove down our street, and I got to go with him and his dad to watch a Little League baseball game. Sadly, both our families were not terribly stable, and we lost track of each other when I was forced to go to another school closer to my house.
The universe took us both in very different directions for roughly twenty years, and in 2008, I was playing on the new social site, MySpace (which I never even log into anymore in favor of Facebook of course), and I decided to search for my very favorite childhood friend. Much to my amazement, I found him, and we started chatting. At that time he was very far away in New York, but after a year of emailing, texting, and occasionally talking on the phone, I was able to see him again in the flesh.
We've had many adventures as we approach our second anniversary together this April. Many of the awesome new experiences of 2010 were due to him. More importantly than all of that, is how amazing he is at his very core. You will never meet anyone more caring, devoted, thoughtful, generous, smart, funny, loyal, ambitious, responsible, trustworthy, handsome, or loving. I never have, and am convinced I never will. I could write an entire laundry list of actions which support each of these characteristics, but you probably wouldn't even believe that one person was capable of being so profoundly, wonderfully, brilliantly, awesome. He makes me smile every day, and there is no one I would rather share a laugh with, a dance with, an amazing adventure with, or my entire life with. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to share my life with Buster Pruett. Thank goodness there was only one Buster Pruett in the world when I searched online. Who knew he would truly be so one of a kind?
No comments:
Post a Comment