This weekend in Clearwater, Florida our confirmed bachelor friend Dave Dion married his beautiful Cheryl and a happier couple I’ve yet to see. That our happily married daughter and son-in-law were also in attendance made the event that much more perfect. The intimate wedding chapel Dave and Cheryl chose was nestled in a small town just north of Clearwater, the place where they’d met and fallen head over heels. The golden aura from cream-colored candles enhanced the bride’s petite blonde beauty and beaded candlelight gown. The father of the bride did an admirable job of holding himself together as he gave his only daughter away. Good thing, because the rest of us were already blubbering by the time he managed to croak, “Her mother and I do.” Dave did an admirable job of holding back all but one tear as he said his vows. The bride, not nearly as fortunate, was thankfully wearing waterproof mascara. The highlight of their beautiful reception–for me, at least–was the “married couples dance,” when all the married couples are invited to dance and the MC says after a few minutes, “Will those who’ve been married less than 5 years please leave the dance floor,” etc….

When you’ve lived as long as I have and in as many different places, maintaining friendships takes a lot more time and energy than it did when I was a kid and my best friends lived right upstairs and next door in the same apartment building. Or even when I reached my teens and so many of my friends were at school or in the same youth group at church or just a few houses away in the town where I spent my summers. These days they’re in Denver and Ohio, in California and Vermont and even in Egypt. Email makes staying in touch easier, but there’s nothing like sitting in the same room with a cup of tea or a margarita and talking over old times or current problems, laughing about whatever strikes us as funny (trust me, the number of things that qualify for laughter increases as the margaritas flow). At any rate, friendships matter. They make our lives richer, provide much-needed comfort and support in times of tragedy and hours of shared laughter through the years. Given how I feel about all this, it’s not surprising that I wanted to deal with the deep friendship shared by…