It’s been a year. Everything is different. Different address. Different environment. Different. Everything has changed except the basics, and even a few of those have changed, too. For my whole life, I looked at a wholesale change as impossible, as something that couldn’t be something to even consider. Then it happened for me.
It wasn’t as hard as I feared, but it was hard to be sure. Fearful of change, I went into it expecting the worst. A year later, it couldn’t possibly be better. Oh, to be clear, it had very little to do with me. It had everything to do with my friends and family.
Examples are too numerous to count. There was a friend who texted me at 2 a.m. to check on me, knowing I would be up staring at the ceiling. I had a friend, a vegetarian friend, bring me a meat lasagna. Some friends gave me space. Some drew closer. Others dropped out of the sky, sensing there was trouble like I was sending a secret bat signal only they could hear.
They gave me things I didn’t even know I needed. A random day off. A beer. A dinner. A phone call. These are things I never need, but I did on that day. But surely that couldn’t really help, could it? Yep. It sure could. And did.
A year later the wounds are healed. The emptiness is filled. The nights are once again for sleeping and the days are for bike rides and being with friends again. None of this was guaranteed one year ago, and it was 100% due to my friends.
On this Thanksgiving Day, it is incredibly simple to write words, but incredibly difficult to convey just how significant my thanks is. To all of you who helped me, and to those of you who help others – even in simple ways. Thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving.
(Get more from Chris Kamler, maybe even more photos of his dog, by following him on X, where he is known as @TheFakeNed. Oh, X is the app formerly known as Twitter)