Love me, Respect my wife

A couple of months ago a friend of mine went on FaceBook and posted a rant about how he and his girlfriend had gone fishing at a public beach. He had his shorts all in a bunch because some parents took their kids to the same public beach to play and the kids were frightening the fish away. My wife and I both had the same thought: “It’s a public beach. Expect there to be children. It’s not a good place to fish.” However, neither of us commented on the post.

Last evening, this same person posted the following:

Did Adam or Eve ever gripe about body aches or having to work overtime in God’s garden? Did Jesus complain about being hungry when He fasted for 40 days and nights out in the wilderness? Did God complain from being tired and hurting after creating all the Universe and its beauty? We all have God’s Love inside us and were made in His Image. When you feel the urge to gripe about what’s wrong around you, stop and think about this for a minute: “Is my griping about XYZ going to mean anything a week, month, or year from now?” If not, find something else to gripe about. Better yet, find beauty in something you would normally gripe about and just see what happens next. We are all miracles; it’s time we start acting more like it.

My wife commented that he should keep that in mind the next time he goes fishing and finds himself wanting to fillet the neighbor’s kids. His response indicated that he had no clue what she was talking about and this morning she logged in to FaceBook to discover that her entire part of that conversation had been deleted (presumably because it made him look a little hypocritical) and he had “unfriended” her.

Thirty years ago, this person was the best friend I had on the planet. Over the last decade or so, however, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve even talked on the phone. As a matter of fact, the last time I called him, there was fifteen minutes worth of him talking non-stop and me going, “Uh huh” when he stopped for a breath, followed by him announcing that he had to be going. This person who was like a brother 30 years ago no longer even bothered to say, “How’ve you been?” and now he’s unfriended my wife because she pointed out that he is, in fact, human.

After close to 20 years of rejoicing with me through the good times, encouraging me through the bad times, putting up with my faults, and crying on my shoulder when she needed to, I have no doubt who my “best friend” is, and what I’m about to do is my own idea, not something I was nagged into, done in support of my true friend.