Ebony tower of quiet strength and competence,
A touchstone in my darkest days, the brother I never had,
Different from me in so many obvious ways,
Yet the same in all the ways that matter.

Yours was the face I first saw,
Coming out of a very painful surgery,
Crouching by my bedside in the hospital,
Next to my mom and girlfriend (now wife).

You stood by me as my best man,
You loved my parents as your own (they you),
You sat with me holding my mom's hands,
When she no longer knew either of us.

You stood by me to say good bye to mom and dad,
In the darkest days in funeral homes and church,
With your lovely wife by your side,
And cried with me again not for the first or last time.

We are a study in contrasts,
You are tall, black and beautiful,
Me relatively short, white and worn these days,
You have all your hair while I lost much of mine.

You are a natural athlete and always beat me,
At tennis, softball, and even video games--always,
I was the second-fastest short-distance runner in my middle school,
But you could run faster than me too--graciously invincible.

You are a left of center Democrat,
I'm a right of center Republican,
We both care deeply about politics,
And largely dislike politicians the other supports.

But in our 42 years of the closest of friendships,
There has never been a single controversial issue,
On which we could not find a compromise solution,
We could both agree on as fair and workable.

We spent hours, days, weeks, months, years,
Debating issues about which we are both passionate,
But never--not once--in anger despite the passion,
Every single time able to find common ground.

Our secret on that front is a simple one,
We have a deep abiding respect for one another,
And an abiding faith in each other's integrity,
Born out of four decades living in each other's heads.

If you strongly believe something to be true,
I must seriously consider it and can't ever dismiss it off hand,
Nor do you what is equally important to me,
Our visions differ, but never our goals.

These days we don't see each other or speak very often,
Life has gotten in the way for us both as it too often does,
But when we do speak, write or see each other,
It is the same as it has always been and will always be.

If I never see you again, my dearest of friends, for twenty years,
Nothing will have changed in our transformational friendship,
You will always stand beside me in spirit if not in person,
Every day of my life while I draw breath, and I pray after too.