On Friendship

Originally posted on Human Pages:
I’ve been trying for ages to write about a friend from many years and cities and jobs ago, and the questions that have always trailed out from his story are, What do we owe our friends and family? What do we owe to the people we love? What kind of difference can we make in their lives? This friend had a troubled upbringing that included time in jail, but when I met him he was in his late forties already, and we both worked in…