Best Friend

My best friend Fernando finally returned my call to take him out dinner for his birthday on April 17. When I haven't heard from him for a few days after I left a message on his voice mail, I mentally formulated hypotheses to justify his not calling:

1. he is visiting his folks down in LA for Easter,
2. he and his wife Maria are having a second baby,
3. he is relocating to Hong Kong for a job (a belated April fool for the gullible me), and,
4. he is just being a knuckle-head

Well...while all my guesses are plausible, it turns out that he found out about Maria's pregnancy on Friday. So they spent the weekend juggling multiple tasks to make preparations. We agree on having dinner this coming weekend. After I got off the phone with him, I realized that this Easter has afforded doubling meaning for our friendship. I met Fernando on Easter 11 years ago in Berkeley and that Easter fell on the exact same date - April 16, 1995. Then a friend of mine threw a surprised birthday party for him on April 17. Now I look back and reflect on all the years through which we have struck up for each other, through thick and thin, leaves me with an overflowing sense of gratitude for the precious gift of friendship. Eleven years after the first spark of friendship, we celebrate our friendship with the elated announcement of a new life.