On Friendship
Friendship is a diverse endeavor; layer over layer of intensity, mercy, strength, and weakness. It has a rare quality in its fleeting or stamina. You will always remember. Years from now, when the name escapes your tongue, a sudden surge of nostalgia will reconstruct a memory, a glimmer of the eye, a subtle texture of differences, and regardless of the distance that’s grown between, you will always smile fondly.
Friendship is an education of the heart. It will teach you how far you will go, how willing you are to bend or break, and with what urgency you move through a particular time in life. I will have many moments in years to come that throw me back into the heart of my life in Korea. I owe the greatest debt of gratitude for rediscovering myself, and how much we all need each other, to my friend Ali.
Some of you have taken the time to read his website and comment on his ordeal. But there is more than what is posted on a page. Letter after letter, his face materializes in front of me.
He is young and full of hope, resilient even when his soul feels cold and his mind is numb. In his darkest hours he wonders if he’ll ever feel his mother’s arms around him, again. Yet even in that doubt, he will be the first to reassure his mother that he’s coming home. His thoughts bend painfully when he considers the life that has been stolen from him, but the future inspires him to continue with a smile. He pushes against the weight of his wrongful imprisonment with the strength of a thousand men, but does not push anyone to believe him unless their heart is in it. He assures me everyday when I look over his letters, his trial, and his story. He inspires me everyday; I do have a voice in this world that’s louder than the buildings crumbing under the weight of human indifference, war, and conceit.
Friendship . . . it binds us together to face the bitter elements of this world, so that even when we falter there will be a piece of our heart that keeps us on our feet.
I am willing to bend.
I am willing to break.
Friendship is an education of the heart. It will teach you how far you will go, how willing you are to bend or break, and with what urgency you move through a particular time in life. I will have many moments in years to come that throw me back into the heart of my life in Korea. I owe the greatest debt of gratitude for rediscovering myself, and how much we all need each other, to my friend Ali.
Some of you have taken the time to read his website and comment on his ordeal. But there is more than what is posted on a page. Letter after letter, his face materializes in front of me.
He is young and full of hope, resilient even when his soul feels cold and his mind is numb. In his darkest hours he wonders if he’ll ever feel his mother’s arms around him, again. Yet even in that doubt, he will be the first to reassure his mother that he’s coming home. His thoughts bend painfully when he considers the life that has been stolen from him, but the future inspires him to continue with a smile. He pushes against the weight of his wrongful imprisonment with the strength of a thousand men, but does not push anyone to believe him unless their heart is in it. He assures me everyday when I look over his letters, his trial, and his story. He inspires me everyday; I do have a voice in this world that’s louder than the buildings crumbing under the weight of human indifference, war, and conceit.
Friendship . . . it binds us together to face the bitter elements of this world, so that even when we falter there will be a piece of our heart that keeps us on our feet.
I am willing to bend.
I am willing to break.
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