"A ship named dignity"

I have a friend lets call him Jim, since that is what everyone else calls him. Jim has over the past few years been a constant source of inspiration to me and a few others as well. I know he has had this effect on others as I find myself talking about Jim with other friends of us both almost every time we chat.

He is an older person who mainly speaks quietly and sometimes has a tendency to ramble on what could be called obscure points. He holds views some of which I cannot pretend to share, and some that I won't lie and say that I understand. He is passionate about his views and eloquent in expressing them. He never though gets on a soapbox in order to convert people to his own view, nor does he argue to win. He respects my right to differ and allows me to do so politely and with Patience. He has a good sense of humour and attempts to take life as something to be enjoyed.

Now we all know folk like Jim right? People that remind us of the qualities and virtues that we so desperately wish we possessed in stronger measure ourselves. I see in many of my friends qualities that I wish I could display, unlike some others my friends are folk who I have either collected on my journey, or who have collected me. I have only one friend who goes way back to my childhood days, I think this is significant as I have a notion that somehow the term friends has become misunderstood.

For me friends are people who in some way add or give something to our experience of our own life, and we do the same for them. A commitment to spend time, to share ideas and thoughts, to be honest to the point of inflicting pain with each other are part of the "friends" package. The knowledge that these people can make us happy if we are sad, or help guide us through the our problems and fears in a bid to understand our unhappiness is also a strong indication of what friends mean to each other. Notions of trust and respect are never spoken of because they have been built up over time, and are implicit in our understanding of each other.

That is my way of telling the difference between friends and mates, or fellow gang members, or drinking buddies etc. In my view being there for some one, or people that you "hang with" might as well be other terms for strangers. One last thing however is on my list of attributes of a friend, and once again I turn to Jim to help me explain it.

Jim has a disability, he needs personal care, he needs social and mental interaction. He needs a companion and a carer. Up until recently he had all that, the physical act of caring and the emotional and intellectual support provided by the one person. This person had a full life of there own but it was seldom that Jim would go anywhere or do anything with out his companion. The cliche that they were inseparable fits, but in this context the notion that both shared their experiences freely and with no thought of personal gain is true. They shared in each others lives for more than 10 years.

Last Christmas Jim and his companion were involved in a car crash that killed his companion and left Jim severely injured. Jim spoke up as soon as he could and said that he was probably to blame for the accident.
Just take a second to look back at the last paragraph and asses for yourself exactly what the impact on Jim has been.
Jim survived his injuries although no one ever fully recovers from such an accident. He has fought to get a level of personal care put in place, he has got back behind the wheel of a car, he has begun to put his life back together. Yet even that is not what I am drawing attention to in this article. I am sure mostly every one can say that they know people who have had some very rough times and that they admire those who come through such times.

Jim has given me and all those that know him the gift of seeing someone trying to get to grips with his emotional loss and his personal struggle. Others and I unashamedly say that I would be one of them, would have been unable to cope and chosen to die rather than make the attempt to come to terms with the changes in my life. I am just not strong enough to withstand that kind of emotional and physical pain, and I doubt if I would be able to think about the organisational nightmare of getting a care package. I am not saying he has done this on his own he has had support from others, but he is the one who on a daily basis gets out of bed having made the decision that life goes on.

Nor can I tell you that I would have the ability to do what I have witnessed Jim do, confront past memories and current raw emotions by deliberately subjecting himself to them. He goes to the places and does the things that remind him of his past, he sits in shopping malls crying, or in mid sentence he will start to weep, he forces himself out of the house to deliberately confront his past and his future. Not one bit of this is about self pity although I would forgive Jim that, instead it is about self healing and finding ways to come to peace. It is also done with dignity, difficult to imagine someone in a wheelchair crying in a busy shopping mall with dignity, but then Jim does not do exhibitionism. If a stranger did see and were to approach he would not push them away, but neither would he be looking to unload his feelings on someone who did not have the time or the interest in really talking to him. Jim through his pursuit of his dignity, not just in his physical care but also in an attempt to restore his self respect and self esteem manages to instill in me the knowledge that the soul and the heart can be healed if you want it to be. Jim we your friends love you and care for you, and I thank you!