Friends

It was 2.00 o’clock in the afternoon on the 28th of August 2001. I sat in the front row of the classroom, waiting for the lecturer of my Constitutional Law class. Most of my classmates had assembled. A little later, the door opens and in walks this tall young man with, what to me, seemed like a girl on each arm. He was a young Chinese lad with a really thick silver bracelet on one arm, eye catching silver rings on the fingers of his right hand and sunglasses on. He didn’t remove the shades even though he was indoors and I was struck by how incredibly ‘dangerous’ he looked. Now had anyone asked me at that point whether I would be anything more than a classmate to this young man, I would have laughed. Truth be told, I was not planning on forming any lasting friendships. I was in a bad place in my life at that time. I was planning on completing my studies and being done with it. No attachments, no strings, get in and out without getting involved in any way. Eight years on, that young man is one of my closest friends. I just attended his wedding and he married another classmate in a beautiful ceremony that was followed by a splendid reception.
It has been a long and adventurous journey and I wouldn’t change it for anything. In fact, I even welcome the events that led up to that fateful meeting. I cannot regret the awful events that led to my presence in that classroom. If I were to regret the path I had chosen, it would mean regretting the friends I have made in that time. I could never regret the friends that I have made, not even inadvertently. Two friends have been polarizing influences in the last 8 years and both of them I met that day. The first was not the young man that caught my eye in class. The first was a sweet, young, innocent of a girl, who like me was nervous enough about being unable to find the classroom in time that she, like me, had shown up a full thirty minutes before class had begun. It is perhaps unusual that in a class of only 18 students I had found not one but two kindred spirits. I did not know it then but that meeting marked the beginning of a journey that is still ongoing today. A journey that I hope will last our lifetimes. Though we have each embarked on routes and pathways that vary and at times we meander through life with minimal contact, yet our hearts and spirits are always entwined.