Today is Howard’s birthday. I think he’s fifty-six. I’m writing in celebration of our friendship.
Thirty eight or so years ago we met. He still had all his fingers then. In my memory we met on a construction site.
Since then along the way we have managed to stay alive, remain friends, raise families, stay married.
Perhaps the most telling thread of our relationship has been our gradually expanding spiritual understanding.
Howard has taught me the value of being right. As it turns out this lesson roots in the evasive nature of what right means. Growing up in a conservative Catholic home I learned that Jews were misguided people, selfish, mean. When Howard uncovered his Jewish background after I had already come to like, trust and enjoy him, I had a decision to make about what was right. Was my family and culture right? Was my eye to eye and heart to heart relationship with Howard right?
Howard is a hard headed guy. I’m old enough to know everybody’s soft in there somewhere, but it’s taken me awhile to understand that. Conflicts with How have been part of that education. Much like my experiences with my wife, I often found myself feeling hurt and alone in response to a strongly worded opinion from my friend. Here again the question of right and wrong begged for attention. What I’ve learned is my own adherence to being right was always the point of pain. Howie’s opinion, no matter how strongly stated, didn’t really have the oomph to bully me into pain. The pain was already there inside me, and all he did was remind me of it.
As it turns out my friend Howard has had his own share of upsets, setbacks, insults, betrayals, confusions. And in my learning, the more I have become able to recognize his pain as the soil for his dogmatism, the more I have been able to see clearly again his generous, kind, sensitivity .
Howard has followed his own heart in an admirable way. With it has come a great deal of humor, creativity and commitment to kindness as well as paramilitaristic opposition to meanness and selfishness.
I suppose we all have friends like Howard, at least potentially. It seems to be t he nature of life that we are all offered ways to find our ways, and the people around us are that. My friend Howard has not been an always easy teacher to follow or student to teach. But he has been a friend in the deepest meaning of the word.
