Of friends, friendships and family

Some friendships develop fast and then fizzle out. Some people suddenly come through for you in some crisis and make you realize that they are more than "people" - they are your friends. Some friends take time to grow on you. That kind of friendship lasts through times and sometimes, generations.

A dear friend of ours is in the hospital today. He is the kind that irritates the heck out of you in the beginning and then you slowly realize that he is not so bad and then one day he is like family. Then whatever traits of his irritated you in the past either don't mean anything or just don't irritate you that much now. You realize that the irritating qualities were nothing but mere grains of sand in your shoes - not that important if you come to think of it. And the good qualities, mainly his ability to be a good friend and the way he cares about your whole family, is what matters the most.

J met him when he joined the company that sent him here on H1B visa. They were both trained on the same project and came to the US almost together. He settled down in New Jersey and we made Connecticut our home. Two years back, he purchased a townhouse and moved a little farther but distance couldn't douse this friendship. We still visit each other, even if less frequently, and are ALWAYS there on special occasions. I remember, I used to butt heads with him everytime we met. Slowly, I grew up and so did he :D Now I can't remember when was the last argument we had. Probably when he told me I shouldn't wear high heels during pregnancy (I was 8 months pregnant then). It was a very short argument - I said "Oh yeah? I don't think so!" and that was that!!

His wife called today. He had been running a fever since quite a few days. In fact, we just visited them last weekend for his son's birthday party. I was going to write a post on that because that was Baby M's first long distance trip. He was running a fever even then and didn't hold M for the fear of passing on his infection to her. Yesterday, he and his wife were going to the hospital for his checkup when they met an accident and his spleen ruptured. I don't know all the details of how it was diagnosed, but they came back home initially. Later they went back to the hospital and he was operated upon and his spleen removed. He is in the ICU and going to stay there till tomorrow. His BP is still on the low side - he lost a lot of blood. They took out 1.5 litres of blood from his stomach. They still don't know what caused the fever in the first place. More tests will be run once he is out of the ICU.

J rushed to New Jersey as soon as he learnt of all this. I wanted to go too but we decided against it because with M, I would probably be more of a burden than help. But I desparately want to be there. Tomorrow we will probably all go back (if J comes back tonight) and I can cook something to take with me so R, his wife, doesn't have to worry about that at least.

S wanted to know if she will miss camp and we said yes. She was a little disappointed but I explained to her that friends and family take precedence over everything else and he is definitely family. She understands.

Get well soon, S.