FRIENDS OF BILL

FRIENDS OF BILL

No, not that Friends of Bill. Not the anonymous kind with coffee and life epiphanies in church basements. I’m talking about Bill, my actual friend.

If you don’t have one of your own, I suggest you go out and get one immediately. But fair warning. They are a rare species. Like unicorns. Or a reasonably priced plumber.

Bill, my friend Bill, is truly one of a kind. He is a man's man. A twelve-year-old trapped in a grown man's body. Not in a creepy way. More in a “let us build a zipline and set something on fire” kind of way.

This man is a Husband. Dad. Papa. Son. Brother. And legendary friend. If there were a Hall of Fame for friendship, Bill wouldn’t just be inducted –he’d offer to remodel the place while grilling ribs in the parking lot.

Bill is a fix-it guy. And I don’t mean he changed a lightbulb once. I mean the man can repair, build, or MacGyver literally anything. If he doesn’t already know how to do it, he’ll figure it out by dinner time and probably build you a better version using only paper clips, zip ties, and duct tape.

He is also a guitar picker. A shockingly good cook. And the reason I am carrying around a few bonus pounds of Bill Belly. Exhibit A: the key lime pie the size of New Hampshire that he made for me while I was recovering from shoulder surgery. Delicious. Not just a slice. Not just a pie. A continent of pie. NASA had to approve it’s delivery.

Bill loves his family so much you can see it. He never slows down. He’s constantly doing things for other people. Building. Fixing. Feeding. Lifting. Laughing. Sometimes I wish he’d just do a little something for himself. Like sit down. Or blink.

Now let us talk about the laughter. One of life’s best free drugs. And let us be honest. None of us ever get enough of it.

Now remember, Bill is still twelve inside. So am I. So are several of the other misfits in our circle. Bill can have us doubled over and howling with just one offhanded comment. Delivered deadpan. Followed by a sly side eye and the kind of faint smirk that says he accidentally cracked himself up too.

I know what you are thinking. Grown men giggling like kids? Yes. Yes, we are. Don’t judge. If laughter is medicine --in our healthcare plan, Bill is the head pharmacist.

Bill could be anything. He has had more careers than most people have socks and been good at all of them. But in the end, I think he made the very best choice:

He chose to be Bill.

And I’m one hundred percent sure that all the Friends of Bill out there are incredibly glad that he did.

Friends like Bill don’t just happen — they’re The Condition that makes the rest of life a little easier and a lot funnier. If you’ve got your own Bill, count yourself lucky. If not, stick around. I’ve got more Bill stories where this came from.