How Many Friends have you Taken for Granted?

Today, I received some bad news about the passing on of a dear friend. I feel ashamed to call my friend dear because I saw my friend slowly die and I did nothing. It began some time back, when I noticed my friend stopped smiling. Though I noticed, I never asked what was wrong. We live in a day and age of everyone minding their business. My friend's wellbeing should be my business.

 

Then I noticed my friend disappearing online. My friend stopped posting, was nowhere on social media. I never bothered to ask why. I was busy connecting with those who are active. Then my friend stopped coming to Church. We used to sit together in Church, serve. I never followed up why the absence. "I don't beg people to come to worship" I thought. 

 

Then I started hearing stories about my friend. In fact, I ganged up with others to gossip about my friend. We gossiped as if we were experts of how my friend should live. I gossiped, instead of reaching out. When I scrolled through my phone book list, I passed my friend's contact. I waited for my friend to speak to me first, knowing very well my friend seemed to be going through something.

When my friend did call, I ignored. I failed to reply the messages, too busy. Or, maybe I thought my friend was calling to ask me for money, based on the gossip I was told. I used to pray for my friend, but slowly I stopped. It appears that out of sight, out of prayers.

 

Then today, I was told my friend has died. My friend, all along was struggling, feeling alone, yet all I did was nothing but assumptions. My friend was stressed, depressed then committed suicide.

 

Here I am, asked to give a speech at the funeral, yet the tears I cry are for how I failed my friend when my friend was still living. My friend is not coming back for me to love better. Maybe if I cared things would have turned out different. 

 

Look back and see the friends you have pushed away, ignored or taken for granted. Call up that old friend, care for the one who has gone silent. People are going through so many issues behind those fake smiles and glossy social media posts; And all they need is a true friend.

 

Be a true friend before it is too late.

'I don't Forgive This Woman, and she Needs Help', Says Wrongly Accused Child.

With tears streaming down his cheeks, a 9-year-old black child spoke out at a community meeting in New York about being wrongly accused of grabbing a white woman's backside in a corner store -- an incident disproved by security-camera footage.

With his mother standing beside him, Jeremiah Hervey delivered a simple message at the community meeting: "Friendship is really the key."

Jeremiah's emotional response came six days after Teresa Klein called the police and claimed the boy had grabbed her butt in a Brooklyn corner store Wednesday.

Klein issued an apology after viewing surveillance video of Jeremiah's backpack brushing her backside as he passed her in the store. The video clearly shows Jeremiah's hands were in front of him as he passed her. 

Klein also claimed that she called the police because the child's mother was aggressive.

"I felt someone grab my a--. I said, 'Don't touch my a--.' The woman flew at me, claimed she was a police officer, threatened to arrest me and I called 911," Klein told New York ABC station WABC.

On Friday, Klein returned to the store, as residents and local media stood by, to finally watch the surveillance video. Footage from inside the store showed the boy's book bag grazing Klein's butt. His hands, which didn't touch her, were in plain sight on the video. Klein later apologized on video to the boy after seeing the footage.

"Young man, I don't know your name, but I'm sorry," she said.

"She basically said, 'I'm calling the cops on you.' She didn't say the mom or anybody else. She said I'm calling the cops on you and that poor, little boy, man," Littlejohn told WABC.

"We're definitely going to make a movement out here," Littlejohn said in his Facebook post Sunday. "We're going to stop people -- I will say, people -- from dialing 911 unnecessarily. ... It's gotta stop, people. ... We will not let this continue to happen."

A Friendship Formed in Heaven.

This is amazing! Clarence E. Huntley Jr. and Joseph Shambrey (pictured below) died on January 5, 2015 in their respective Los Angeles homes. They were both 91. Huntley and Shambrey were among the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black fighter squadron that flew in World War. As lifelong friends, Huntley and Shambrey enlisted together in 1942 and, in 1944, were also together in Italy with the 100th Fighter Squadron of the Army Air Force's 332nd Fighter Group. As mechanics, their main responsibility was to keep the combat planes flying.

Alas, their heroic war efforts did not spare them from the rabid racism of those ugly days in the American history. According to Shambrey's son, the war veteran recalled getting off a train in Alabama where a hospitality station was welcoming returning white troops with handshakes and free coffee. Not only were the men, still in uniforms, denied appreciative handshakes because of the color of their skin, but also were made to pay for their coffee.

Since the end of the World War Two though, the two men were said to have got closer as friends, except that they would not talk about the war. The friendship between these two gentlemen could only have been formed in heaven. In today’s world, “Best Friends Forever” (B.F.F.) is only a cliché. It’s no wonder that many will rather settle for mere acquaintances that can, once-in-awhile, be window-dressed as “close friends”.



Clarence E. Huntley Jr. (left) and Joseph Shambrey (right) COURTESY Los Angeles Chapter Tuskegee Airmen Inc president Ron Brewington.

 

 

Words on Marble in Celebration of Good Friendship.

 “Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” – Aristotle.

“Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.” - Muhammad Ali.

“The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” - Ulysses S. Grant.

“False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.” - Richard Burton.

“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.” - Octavia Butler.

When it’s Time to Evaluate Your Closest Friends or Associates.

Positively or negatively, we all are influenced by the individuals we closely associate with. If you take stock of your life and conclude that you’re not where you’re supposed to be, then it’s time to seriously evaluate your closest friends or associates.

If a happy marriage is suddenly faced with constant quarrels and dramas, either the husband or the wife has involved themselves in some pastimes that run contrary to their marital vows. He or she has now become a lamb that eats feces under the negative influence of a dog. It has therefore become absolutely necessary for the affected party to objectively evaluate his or her closest friends or associates.

A similar situation arises when an upwardly mobile professional suddenly begins to put their career on the line - calling off-duty, abusing sick leave process and disrespecting constituted authority. That individual needs a moment to urgently evaluate their closest friends or associates. Somehow, he or she has been compromised by a lazy, complacent colleague or associate. In as much as misery loves company, a “loser” or “never-do-well” will always want to drag someone else along the destructive path. And usually, it’s their closest buddy they drag down with them.  

Choosing Friends.

Make sure to surround yourself with friends or associates who can positively and effectively influence your life.

If the majority of your friends lacks basic principles to live by except, maybe some religious posturing, your life will be filled with pretenses and delusions.

If almost or all of your friends are the cynical, negative types who derive pleasure, albeit discretely, from your failures and downfalls, it will be very difficult for you to experience a positive growth in your life.

And if you have a lot of friends whose major pastime is to discuss persons instead of issues, you’ll end up miserable and unfulfilled most of the time.

Why? Because misery loves company and association induces participation. Only the deep can call to the deep in wisdom. And only the shallow can reach out to the shallow in stupidity.

It's a free world. You reserve the rights to choose your friends.

Choose wisely!

Don't you judge me!

"Don't you judge me!" How many times have we made or heard that statement?

According to a popular Yoruba adage, "A person always knows when he or she does something terrible but goes into denial while expecting someone else to tell them." Unfortunately, when such a terrible person does get to meet someone that reveals their character to them, the usual reaction from them is "Don't you judge me!"

Most people will cling on to denial whether they are addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling. There are individuals who are into terribly bad habits that daily threaten to derail their careers, marriages or relationships. Yet, they hate to be told or reminded about these social maladies because of some pride or sheer stubborn attitudes...that is until something in their lives is destroyed.

This was the lesson a woman learned some years back in a very hard way. An American-based friend of mine was in Germany on vacation and one night, his host took him on a night's out. The guys were passing by a red-light district of Berlin when they saw a group of multiracial hookers advertising their bodies by the side of the street. As the two fed their eyes on the barely-clad flesh all around, my friend recognized one of the hookers and the shock made him yell at his host to stop the car. The woman and her husband were resident in Nigeria. So, my friend wondered why the woman was in Germany. When they pulled to a stop, two hookers took that as an invitation to jump into the darkness-filled car. Incidentally, one of the hookers was the identified woman. Irritated by this scenario, my friend's host announced to the women that they were not looking for hookers but that they pulled over for a different reason.

As the women hissed in frustration and tried to step out of the car, my friend suddenly turned on the car's inner light and called the name of the woman. Stunned to see the man, the woman initially started to plead that her secret be kept secret. She admitted that she lied to her husband about a business trip to Europe. But these pleas and explanations did not impress my friend as he confronted the woman for doing something that was not only shameful but also a danger to her husband. Finally, the woman could not take it anymore.

She was said to have flared up in anger, saying "Don't you dare judge me!"

"Judge you?" my friend stared at her in disbelief. "This is no judgement call. All I'm trying to do is tell you something you already know is bad..."

"And so...what's your business in this matter anyway...are you my husband?" the woman asked. "Listen, I dare you to tell my husband...then, we shall see who will come out of this scarred for trying to destroy my home."

With this declaration, the woman stomped off the car.

All through his return trip back to the United States, my friend was in dilemma. Should he inform his friend in Nigeria or keep the secret to himself? He decided to be a good friend by calling his friend in Nigeria.

"Hey buddy..." the other man said as he listened to my friend's story. "It was good you called to tell me...I just saw a picture in which you were talking with my wife in Germany."

"What!" my friend exclaimed in shock. "How did you get that?"

The other man chuckled, saying he had to put a "tail" on his wife as she departed for Europe. This action was the culmination of a negative report that he got the previous time the woman was in Dubai. It was a female relative of the man who saw his wife in a compromised situation in the middle-eastern country. The man's niece tried to call the woman to order about the disgraceful incident. But instead of taking the wise counsel, the woman told her husband's niece to mind her own business and stop judging her.

"As a business woman..." the other man went on to say. "Today, it's Germany, tomorrow, it's Dubai. She has been all over the place on so-called business trips and I never suspected she had been doing something else. So, this time around, I employed someone to follow her and keep a tab on her."

What if my friend had not called to disclose his discovery...how would he have subsequently explained his being "caught" on camera with his best friend's wife?

And as for the woman, if only she had listened the first time! Now, she did not know the horrible reception waiting for her back home in Nigeria where adultery is not only seriously frowned upon but also considered an abomination. 

Whenever we have the privilege to have a mirror thrust to our face to behold some flaws we have always seen but ignore, we should have the social grace to express gratitude to the person holding the mirror. It's a call for an urgent sober reflection instead of a denial or whining and crying about being judged.