The Cost of Friendship

Sometimes it means sleepless nights

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

A true friend bears your burdens. I think a lot of us don’t know what that means. I think it means the following:

They enter in grief with you and they are OK with you ruining their day or week, with bad news.

Recently my son’s five-year-old classmate was beaten to death by his father. The details are horrific and tragic. It’s had a huge effect on our school community.

Valentine used to play with the boy daily. He talked about him constantly at home. The news hit especially hard. I talked football with his dad a few times a week while we waited for our sons in the pick-up line at school.

I am gutted. Angry. Confused. Heartbroken. And I needed to talk about it with someone other than Sasmita, my wife.

I knew full well that when I called my friends, this news would destroy their days, maybe weeks. They might not be able to sleep, as I have. The details are appalling.

Everyone who hears the story is sickened—a toddler, whose dad used him as a punching bag. He hit him so hard, that he went unconscious and died. It can hardly be worse.

But that’s the price of friendship. If you call yourself a friend, then you need to be there to listen no matter how awful the news might…