A Friendship in Summary

The funny thing about friendship is it’s truly a sum of its parts kind of deal. You don’t catalog this or that. You just accept what is about your friend and take it in stride.

Strange that after one dies and I think of her in a collection of character traits. Like how when we would go for our daily walks, Nevada (that’s her name) she’d always stoop down to pick up loose change. Even pennies. Most people wouldn’t bother. But Nevada would always scoop it up like it was a gold coin and say, “Hey, it’s money isn’t it? I’m not too proud to pick it up.”

Nevada was brave, strong, vibrant, strong willed, compassionate, a hater of small talk, and a lover of flowers, plants of walking outside, of a cold beer on a patio.

Afflicted with a rare brain disease called, Moyamoya that killed her.

Before she died, she lived a full life.

And I was lucky enough to part of that life. Our paths crossed in the winter of 2006. We were both copywriters for Ford Motor Company’s ad agency. Most writers aspire to write more than car slogans… and this was definitely the case with Nevada. She self published one book and was in the middle of writing her second one when she died.

And myself for that matter. But this story isn’t about me. Not really. I was just along for the ride. A friendship for the ages—that lasted only four years.

She and I shared some similar personality traits: We’d never stop talking, we loved to write, to drink beer, both steadfastly loyal to those we loved, and a wicked sense of humor.

Me though, I will say even to strangers on the sidewalk or when a new person would walk by Nevada and mine’s desk… Nevada used to tease me, asking me why was I talking to them? They didn’t know me.

We used to joke about how when we got old, we’d both be at the nursing home and I’d be saying hi to everyone and Nevada would be grumpily telling everyone to go away.

It’s a wonder then how we even became friends in the first place. Perhaps I wore her down or she learned I wasn’t as much as a dork as I perhaps originally appeared.

I can’t be sure what it was, but I am just glad it is so.