Doughnuts, Friendship

Four years ago my car lease was on the brink of expiration.

My husband had always taken care of routine matters like that for me. Until the day he left my world, I had no idea of exactly how well taken care of I had been.

Mundane things, like never putting fuel in a vehicle, never having a thought to putting air in a tire, or getting to a car wash and on and on and on.

Oh, I was independent to some degree, I had enjoyed a career for most of the 57 years of our marriage, but the essential necessities of life had been carefully and quietly tended by the man I loved.

I didn’t exactly crash that sunny September morning in 2008, but in retrospect I came pretty close.

As the days, months and hours moved forward, I began to pick up the bits and pieces of responsibilities I had long been able to ignore.

Our children were grown, and spread across the width of our country, Thankfully, all four of them were readily available by phone and quick to ask what I needed, but I tried not to alert them unless I was coping with a major issue.

Fortunately, there weren’t too many of those. My husband had taken care of most of those before leaving our world.

Yet it was the myriad of minor problems that seemed almost too much for me to cope with alone.

One was my car. I had never dealt with the complications of buying a new vehicle. My son in law graciously offered to assist me, but I refused to allow him to travel from another state for such a routine matter.

Then when the morning I had my appointment with the auto dealer arrived, I had a surprising phone call.

It was from my husband’s long time friend, the faithful buddy who arrived weekly at our home throughout those long four years of illness. And he always brought the doughnuts.

His gift always seemed to be more than simply a box from Dunkin Doughnuts. Possibly because I can’t recall either of the friends ever taking more than a token bite along with the two mugs of black coffee I put on the dining room table.

No, I soon realized that the tasty morsels were a token of reassurance that while the younger of the two friends was preparing reluctantly for his inevitable journey, his longtime pal would keep things on course as long as he could.

The two men had shared the same career, knew the same world of law enforcement and lunched monthly together long after both had moved on to other professions,.

I wasn’t surprised that morning then with the phone call from Sal. However, I was surprised when he told me he just happened to be going to the Buick dealer also, and wondered if I needed a ride.

That was four years ago today. Of course, I wasn’t alone that October morning when I finally relinquished my car and for the first time took possession of one without my husband. His best friend went with me.

That wasn’t the end of the phone calls or advice Sal made during the years that followed. They were never intrusive nor invasive, simply the sound of a comforting voice and more often, an invitation for lunch or dinner with both he and Rose, his wife.

We did that together just three weeks before he, too, recently took that long journey and joined his friend.

Today is the day in 2013 when I leased a new car for another four years.

Today also would have been his best friend’s 100th birthday.