Answering the call

Monday night football with my team… the Chicago Bears; I am from Illinois.  Sitting with the someone I was meeting to watch the game with and the conversation turns to friendship.  My someone says that they have many acquaintances but only a few close friends.  Usually ,I have two buckets:  those with so many acquaintances are extroverts and those with only a few close friends are introverts.  I always considered myself an introvert.  Obviously, my someone considered himself both but then my thoughts returned to the conversation and he said, “I have friends that if they called me no matter what time of day it was and asked me to do something I would do it without question.”  I was triggered back to a time and place that I will seemingly not escape.  

I remember making that call he was referring to.  I called her that morning and all I remember saying is that she needed to come now.  She asked, “What happened?”  I said, “It’s Sam.”  She said, “I’ll be right there.”  And she was right there; for that first hour, that first day, the days that followed one into another.  She made the CD play list for the visitation.  She was there for the visitation and she didn’t need to stand beside me because she knew I knew she was there.  Her husband made the video for the funeral.  She was there for the funeral.  She was there for the nights that followed the funeral.  She stayed with me, she went grocery shopping, she made sure Nick’s schedule was maintained.  She made me get out of bed every day when otherwise I would have slept the day away.  The days she was there quickly turned into weeks then into months and finally into a year.  She was still there.  She took my call…