True Friendship

    It is amazing the difference is between friends. You would of never thought that my best friend and I growing up would ever be so close. For all those who remember Boy Meets World, the relationship between Cory and Shawn basically mirrors that of my own with my friend.

    In our relationship I was definitely Cory's character and he was just like Shawn. And before you asked I didn't have a Mr. Feeny living next door! But we were connected at the hip and he would influence me into a lot of shenanigans and I would be the voice of reason. We were quite the pair back then.

    And sadly like Shawn's character, he too didn't have the most stable home life. So he sought out whatever form of attention he could get in school. He would try for since positive attention but his parents never seemed to notice it so when that failed he switched to negative attention since that at least would catch someone's attention.

    At the end of junior high he was basically expelled from the private school we both attended. His only option was then to transferred to the public school across town, once there he started to hang out with a bad group. We started to see less and less of each other and the negative influence of that new group of so called friends he begun to run with wasn't good for him. He started smoking, tried drugs, stole, and started sleeping around.

    We would still talk on the phone occasionally and I would try to be the voice of reason and give him the positive advice that he needed so desperately bad. Since I wasn't there all the time anymore he always managed to end up in trouble. He ended up dropping out of school what would of been the end of our senior year. But luckily the tides had turned for him and he decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy.

    He did end up earning his GED and when he came and told me I was so proud of him. He had begun to beat the odds that were stacked against him. And he later even reenlisted for a second term and has started going to college online.

    Thanks to the discipline he got by joining the navy I can almost say without a doubt it had save his life. I truly believe if he hadn't enlisted he would either be in jail today or even dead. And I am immensely grateful that this was the course life put him on and I still have my best friend.

    Last time I saw him I finally came out to him, and he didn't care one bit. In fact he already knew but was waiting for me to come and tell him. In fact he even came to my defense when someone rudely came at me that night. We have been friends now for almost 20 years and I know I have a life long friendship in him and a brother! HAPPY 26th BIRTHAY!

Yours truly, 

Nicklas