Our friends are never perfect, but sometimes they are the perfect friend.
I've been out of touch with a lot of things for several months, this blog being one of them. My best friend, Deane Goodwin, was diagnosed with cancer about two and a half years ago. His health started to noticeably decline this past year, dramatically so since Thanksgiving. During that time most of my painting and sculpting fell by the wayside as I made as many trips to visit, sort and move things as I could. He died last month.
I could write volumes of our dreams and exploits, successes and failures. I'd rather hold tight to those memories and share them with those close to me or Deane as the spirit moves or maybe on days when I can examine them without breaking down in tears. I will share that I can't remember exactly how we became friends, but in typical Deane fashion, we hit the ground running. We had dreams and big plans and actually achieved many of them. Life was faced full on and there was no falseness between us. I could always count on the kick in the ass when I needed it and also the sharing of the joy of our successes. We were friends with no regrets.
As I start to settle back into work and things become a bit more normal, I have one wish... That everyone could experience a friendship like that between Deane and me at least once in their life.