Medela

Medela (me-de’-la): When you can’t deny or defend friends’ faults and seek to heal them with good words.

I’m never going to say you’re perfect, Eddy. You’re far from it, but you’re more to me than the mistakes you’ve made in life, which are numerous. But, you’ve got a moral compass that’s always brought you home.

Remember the time you painted palm prints all over your house’s garage? You said you painted them there as hello- and goodbye-waves so your parents knew you loved them? Your heart was in the right place your hand was in the wrong place. Afterwards, you were tasked with repainting the whole garage.

We both laughed.

Another time, when you were twelve, you decided to tidy up the house when your parents were at work. You thought the shag carpet in the living room was growing out of control. So, you got your dad’s rotary mower and mowed the carpet down. You had been taught to mow the lawn when it got too high. You did a great job—to the point of neatly trimming around the furniture with grass clippers. You were smart enough to use mower’s grass catcher, so it didn’t make much of a mess. Aside from the smell of exhaust fumes you thought you did a pretty good job, until your parents got home. Your mother started crying while your dad yelled every swear word in the book of swear.

It cost nearly $1,000 to have carpet replaced. Again, your intention was good, but your means of fulfilling it was a disaster. This “disconnect” is the hallmark of your existence—you do damage without malice—with good intentions.

There’s so much good in you that I’m proud to be your friend, and vouch for you any time of the day or night, but I’m not going to ride a log with you over Chenengo Falls. I don’t see the fun in it. In fact, it would probably be fatal. Think it through: does “fun” trump “death” as an outcome?

POSTSCRIPT

Eddy went ahead with his plan. He got on a big log like it was a horse and rode it over the falls. He was killed when he hit the rocks below the falls. Bizarrely, he had a smile on his face when the EMTs retrieved his body about a quarter-mile down river.

I was right about the falls. He was wrong. But it didn’t matter. I’d always remember him as my best friend. He was stupid, but he was a kind and loving person.