I’m grateful for my long-time friend Alex Hemingway. Thankfully, Alex knows that I am grateful for him and for the meaningful ways in which our lives have intersected over the years. Nevertheless, I would like to reflect briefly here on some of the ingredients which have made this friendship so tasty.
To begin with, Alex and I are both “seekers” in the spiritual sense of the word. Although when we first met (back in 2004), I was active in an evangelical Christian fellowship and Alex was a recent graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, we hit it off immediately and discerned in each other, I believe, a fellow pilgrim seeking a deeper and more satisfying existence than the one offered to us by society.
From the get-go, Alex and I seemed able to connect through stimulating conversations, and to be able to do so effortlessly – which, I think, is one of the best predictors of longevity in any relationship. We would share our respective outlooks with each other, and we would not shy away from challenging each other, albeit with good natured ribbing and always with an undercurrent of mutual respect, which ensured that the challenges were fruitful and not corrosive to the relationship.
When I moved away from the Chicago area golf club where we had met (I caddied part-time while in graduate school at Bob O’Link GC), it seemed likely that we would maintain some sort of relationship, though it was unclear exactly how the relationship would evolve.
What has happened over the last fifteen years or so is that we have connected intermittently, with periods of ebb, and periods of flow. What has never changed, and for which I am so deeply grateful, is that when we talk, we meet each other where the other one is “at,” always on a deeply personal level and always with mutual respect and regard.
It has been very interesting to see the ways in which our respective lives have changed, and, at the same time, remained the same at their cores. Alex continues to be a man with a palpable wanderlust, someone who is always exploring, always learning, always contemplating, and, above all, always trying to better himself. He is a man who takes his role as a father very seriously, who desires to be able to provide for his two children in the best way possible. He is a hard worker, he is a hustler (in the best sense of that word), and he makes time for his friends, of which I am thankful to be one.
Alex and his family live in California now, and he, like me, is still trying to find his way in, and through, this world. At present, we seem to be speaking about once every three or four weeks, which is very nice, living as we are in a period of worldwide pandemic and social isolation. Even when this frequency drops and goes into a more sporadic vein, we both know, implicitly and explicitly, that we are connected and that our friendship endures.
Alex, I am grateful for you, and I know that you are grateful for me, too, which makes me happy and which leads me to recollect that saying about how a person is measured by the quality of their friends. If that is so – and I believe that it largely is – then my life is, like Harry Bailey’s in Its A Wonderful Life, rich indeed. Thank you, Alex, for being my friend.
10th Leper Gratitude 