There are probably 4-5 people in my life that I would consider my “best friend”. Some are related to me and some are not. I won’t mention names because if that one guy I meet once at soccer camp realizes I don’t consider him my best friend it might hurt his feelings.
Recently I had an experience that made me realize* that my affection for one of these best friends goes beyond mere deep affection and in to the “true love” category. This friend is William Hawk. How did I realize that I love him you ask?
Did I hold him in my arms after a horrible car crash? One hand cradling his head and the other holding his intestines inside of his stomach? One single tear sliding down my check and landing on his lips as he breathed his last breath and used it to say MY name?
No.
Did I watch him perform an emergency delivery of his third child on my kitchen floor? With both hands cradling his baby to his chest as he looks me in the eyes and says, “His name is Brandon"?
No.
Did I lean my head on his shoulder as we slow danced to “our” song and he clasped his hands together at the small of my back? Did he slowly lean into me and just before his lips touched mine he breathed my name gently, “Brandon”?
No. Thank God No.
In truth it was nothing that intimate and he probably didn’t even say my name. It was something much more simple. After not seeing each other for over a week he excitedly told me that he recently had a crazy dream and he just had to tell me about it.
Dreams are an odd thing because the experience for the re-teller and the listener are completely opposite experiences. The person who had the dream and is retelling it thinks it is the most amazing thing in the entire world. The person listening to the dream grows to hate the re-teller more and more with each passing second. We all hate to hear other people’s dreams, in fact we don’t even totally pay attention when someone tells us one. Yet we ALL push that memory aside when we have a dream to tell.
So, typically when someone tells me they have a dream to tell me I silently groan and grit my teeth as I endure the most boring 4 minutes of my life.
“So it was you and me, and all of our friends and we were on a steam boat and there a was a party on the boat and we were all in tuxes and bridesmaid dresses. But the steamboat was on land in the middle of a forest and the paddle was just ripping up the land as it propelled us forward. Two monkeys came swooping through the trees, one in a tux and one in a wedding dress. That’s when I realized we were at a wedding for the two monkeys! Instead of kissing they ate one banana until they met in the middle. And then for some reason we were on a football field and the football players were actual footballs but with arms and legs"………
Okay, dreams don’t make sense. That is part of what makes it so fun when you are in dream world. But unless you are going to slip me some acid before hand it is not interesting to hear about!
Back to William. So he begins telling me his dream which I don’t even remember but I’m sure it had something to do with war because all of his dreams deal with war. At this point I should have been ripping my eyes out through my nostrils but instead I listened. I listened not because I had to but because I wanted to.
I can assure you I didn’t listen because his dream was more interesting than yours. I listened because William was excited to tell me his dream. His eyes lit up. His voice rose an octave. He talked with his hands. He generally enjoyed telling me about his dream. He didn’t simply enjoy sharing his dream because he wanted to tell someone. He enjoyed it because he wanted to share it with me. Our dreams are somehow important to us and he found joy in sharing it with me.
I didn’t realize that I love him simply because he found joy in telling me his dream. I realized I love him because I found joy in being part of his joy. I realized I will listen to his dreams for the rest of our lives and that I am fine with that. God willing one day we will both be in our eighties and William will tell me about how he had a dream about fighting the zombies that rose in 2022 (that isn’t part of the dream, the zombies are really coming in 2022) and I’ll be happy to hear it.
* Just to keep this blog honest I realized that I loved Will long, long ago. This was more of a reminder. I don’t even know when I first realized it. Was it when I first met him and he was hanging out with a kid in the neighborhood who ran around in his underwear while wearing a cape? Was it when he got in a fist fight with a kid twice his size during a backyard (actually frontyard) football game? Was it as teenagers when we would lay in a hammock together and talk about God, girls, and super heroes? I don’t know, my love for him is just part of who I am. It’s like a love for your mother. It just IS.
