A dear friend of mine had a severe nervous breakdown three years ago and ended up making several serious suicide attempts. He even tried to cut his throat, but found the pain was too much to continue. I helped him with antiseptic, healing, and scar-preventing ointments; and I moved in with him to help him get back his better mind. It took a long time, but he is mostly back.
Whenever he got depressed or anxious, I talked with him, trying to benefit him with what I have learned of philosophy and psychology. I also gave him a lot of hugging. And we often held hands. Sometimes, when he was feeling really bad, we did these things in public. I cared more about helping him than about anyone's opinion.
We are both heterosexual or "straight"; but I deeply care about this guy. He is my brother of the heart; and, in Biblical language, he is "my friend whom I love as my own soul"; and I am not ashamed to say so. On the contrary, I am proud to say so. He has always been a really good person, and he did not deserve all the things that happened to him that brought him to his break-down. Just one of those bad things, was this: a woman had deceived him into believing she was going to marry him; but instead, she took several thousand dollars of his money, and left town. His heart was broken and he lost the will to live. Also, he just couldn't cope anymore with the day-to-day drudgeries and demands of life.
I helped him out of his truly deadly depression, back into the joy of loving life. I took the pressures of life off him, and onto myself. I paid his bills for him, figued out his income taxes, and helped him out with money when he needed it. When I first moved in with him and looked at his finances, I discovered his car was on the verge of being re-possessed, he had missed so many payments. I paid the car off out of my own pocket. Next, I found him a better and yet cheaper place to live. Then I looked for and was able to find him a better job, a full-time job with good pay. I had a good job too, so between the two of us we had plenty of money.
One night my friend suddenly had a big anxiety attack, and I went to him and hugged him and asked him to tell me what was disturbing him. He said he couldn't tell me. I said, "You know better than that; you can tell me anything." So he said, "I don't think I'm ever going to get all the way back the way I was. Besides, I always had trouble paying bills and things like that. I need help. Promise me you'll keep helping me. Promise me you'll stay by my side." So I promised him I would. And I meant what I promised.
I had moved out of my own house in order to help my friend, and was still making house payments. After making the commitment that I would stay with him and keep helping him, I figured we shouldn't keep paying rent at his place, plus house payments at my place; so I decided we should move into my house.
One day we were out browsing in a used bookstore. He was in the film, TV, and movie section; I was in the poetry section. He came over to me to show me an autobiography of Shelley Winters. While I was looking at it, a woman noticed me and came up and talked to me and, after a long enjoyable chat, said she'd like to go out with me some time. She gave me her phone number.
Later, at home, my friend was worried. "If you get hooked up with her," he asked, "what's going to happen to me?" I told him there would always be a room for him in my house; and that any woman I might "hook up with" would have to accept that fact: "Because," I continued, "If she won't have you, then I won't have her." My friend could tell I meant what I said, and his worries subsided.
He still sees a therapist and has to take medications. But he is happy most of the time; I have helped him learn how to live in the moment and to treasure every day. And how to appreciate all the wonderful things about life that are so often not appreciated: sun-lit cloud formations; the smell of a fresh-cut lawn; the feel of a cool breeze on a warm day; the taste of hot coffee, tea, or cocoa on a cold day; the sound of laughter of children playing in the park; sunshine and shadows; rainfall and rainbows; and a very long et cetera.
I never expected anything in return for helping my friend; only the reward of seeing him once again living and loving life.
But fate turned on me. The economic downturn cost me my job through downsizing. Before I could get another job, I was diagnosed with cancer and had to start taking debilitating treatments. My insurance premiums became a crushing financial burden. Then one day, my friend, whom I had helped, offered help to me.
I didn't want to take advantage of him, so I asked, "Are you sure you want to do this?" He replied that he did. I asked, "Why do you want to do this?" I expected he might say something like, "Because you helped me when I needed help, and you gave me money when I needed money." But instead he said: "You saved my life; now I'm going to save yours." I didn't know that he knew I had cancer, but he had found out.
I am still helping him. In many ways, I am still taking care of him. I still balance his checkbook and figure out his income taxes and make sure his bills are paid on time. I make sure he takes his medications on time, and that he eats right and takes vitamin and mineral supplements. I see to it he keeps his appointments with his therapist. And so on.
But now he is the only one of us with a steady job and a good income. Now he is taking care of my insurance, so that I have no worry or fear anymore about the medical system that would otherwise have stopped giving me the treatments I need to prolong my life. If I had lost my insurance, I would have soon lost my life.
Other cancer patients here in Nevada weren't so lucky; our governor had decided to keep his campaign promise of no new taxes, no matter what the cost; and the Oncology Center that was treating cancer patients without insurance or enough money, closed for lack of funding, pushing these patients into the streets, or sent them home--those who had a home.
I don't know if anyone is even trying to keep track of what happened to all those cancer victims who were deprived of their treatments and left on their own. How many were able to find help elsewhere? How many died? How many are dying right now? When I saw their vital treatments discontinued, I knew what my fate would be. Without insurance, the society I live in would have just let me die.
My friend may or may not have ultimately saved my life; my cancer is late-stage and precarious; but he certainly has prolonged my life and made it much easier and better for me. Some might call it karma, or instant karma. I call it love. And, yes, I will gladly and proudly hold his hand, any time, anywhere.
