In 1979, my father captured the best picture of my best friend and me. We are celebrating all we have learned at our graduation from Atlanta’s prestigious Emory College and Business School. With all our knowledge, we can’t figure out the puzzle of our hoods. How do these things work? Later in life I’d learn, “Information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom.”
Jeff and I met the first week of college. We were randomly placed in a group to tour all the fraternities during rush week. After all the visits, he invited five from our group to pledge Sigma Chi as a unit. “What if we’re not invited?” I asked. “We will be,” he said. I don’t think he was risking “one for all and all for one”; I think he had inside information. Accepting his suggestion changed (and may have saved) my life.
I liked to double-date with Jeff. I knew we both treated women with respect — not some conquest. Like most college students, I left my childhood church behind, but Jeff invited me to re-enter church with him.
The summer after he was elected president of our fraternity, we were roomies in Vienna, Austria. Although it was a “study abroad”, we spent more time experiencing the culture, seeing the sights, and traveling by train than we studied. On the way west, we joined three fraternity brothers for a month-long incredible journey — driving all over England and Scotland together.
Soon after this picture, while I was away, five friends met with Jeff. They said, “You know you’re gay, we know you’re gay, everyone knows you’re gay….. why don’t you just say it?” When he told me, I thought “apparently I’m not everyone.” For whatever reasons, I had no idea.
When have you learned something new about someone you thought you knew? Who invited you to deep friendship, a renewed faith, living your best life? How has a best friend impacted you?
