When I saw the name connected to the missed call, I knew I had to return it immediately. I just hoped the opportunity hadn’t been lost to talk one more time with one of the best friends I’ve ever had.
I hope you have a friend like my friend Jim. Someone who has a way of making you smile and laugh. Someone you can count on. Someone you would reach out to for help through a tough time in your life. Someone who would have your back even if you did something wrong — and maybe even challenge you to be better. Someone who would be thrilled for you when you have good news to share.
Jim has given me all these gifts at different moments in my life, dating back to the beginning of our friendship in high school in the Philadelphia area in the 1970s. And now with his phone call that I missed, I wholeheartedly believed that Jim was trying to give me one more gift.
The gift to tell each other thanks — and goodbye.
For several years, he had fought the good fight in his battle with cancer — not just determined to beat it, but to continue to live his life with a positive energy that would bring joy, hope, smiles and laughter to his family, his friends and, well, just about everyone who crossed his path.
With him living in Minnesota and me in Indiana, our weekly conversations were mostly by phone during those years, but they were routinely the conversations I savored the most. Every one was filled with shared news about our families, memories from high school, discussions about life, and his efforts to help create sports opportunities for children and youths in underserved, urban areas through the Play Like a Champion Today program at Notre Dame.
Our talks also always turned to our often-frustrating, never-forgotten Philadelphia sports teams. And no matter how much misery those teams caused us, he kept insisting that we needed to “believe” and use our “right brain” positivity for them. And so I did, because it was a blessing to join him in that hope.
That hope was rewarded with the Eagles winning the Super Bowl in 2018 and 2025. Jim howled in pure and primal joy across the phone, before excitedly recalling “the Philly Special” and countless other highlights that took us back to the dreams of our youth, when we played touch football together and imagined such heroics, such joy, for ourselves, for our teams.
He had that same abundance of hope regarding the different cancer treatments that extended his life and his quality of life.
Then came the point when the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do. And soon came the last phone call he tried to make to me, from his bed in hospice.
Seeing the missed call, I phoned him immediately, almost desperately, tapping into that “right brain” positivity that he would answer. And he did.
Hearing his voice, even though it was far weaker than usual, was a gift. So were the smiles and the laughs that came with our conversation. So were the ways we told each other, “I love you, my friend. Thank you.”
I cried when the call ended.
A few days later, one of his brothers texted me with the news that Jim had died “peacefully and gracefully,” surrounded by his beloved wife, Peggy, and their children.
As I prayed for Jim and his family, I thought of the way that God makes his goodness and grace known in the world through our friendships.
I also thought of a column I wrote in 1986 when I worked for The Indianapolis Star. A reader had sent me his copy of the piece in the past year or so, and it has stayed on my work desk ever since. The column had this headline: “Friendship made in youth is special.”
“It’s a friendship with history,” I wrote. “A friendship that had its start in a time long before marriage, jobs, mortgages and children became part of the definition of our lives.
“Maybe you share such a friendship, the kind in which a conversation never seems to end, it just continues at a later date.
“Such friends usually are the ones who can make you laugh by merely raising an eyebrow or giving a certain look. They’re the friends who kid you mercilessly about your old romances. And they’re also the people you turn to when you need someone to listen.
“In a sense, it’s the best kind of friendship. One of the reasons that seems true is because it was made in our youth. As you get older, your friends are often made through your spouse, your children, your career. In your younger days though, your friends are more a reflection of you. And when someone accepts you on those terms, the bond seems stronger.”
The friendships of our youth also came with another defining quality — the belief that time would never change them or us, that time couldn’t touch them or us. And so, we made promises in our youth to always stay connected, to always be there for each other.
The fortunate people — the determined ones — keep that promise. They remember birthdays, make regular phone calls and schedule get-togethers and getaways. And the years melt away with the shared memories, the shared laughter, the shared love.
For too many of us, though, the miles, the years, and the responsibilities of families and careers work to separate us. So it was for a time for Jim and me.
We went to different colleges, lost touch in our late 20s, and 30 years passed before we re-connected. I came in contact with one of his older brothers after all those years, and when our conversation turned to Jim, I asked for an address and a phone number. A note was sent, and when it was greeted with joy, the years faded, and the gift of our friendship soon returned.
The unexpected renewal of that gift inspired me to make a more conscious effort to connect and stay in touch with other friends. The rewards have been many and sometimes surprising.
One of the biggest surprises is something I’ve noticed among my male college friends from Notre Dame, a core group I’ve stayed in touch with through the years. In school together, the depths of our friendship were often shared through humorous jabs. Those signs of affection sometimes continue today, but the passing years have also made us more aware of how precious and fleeting time is — and how blessed we are by our continuing friendships. And now a get-together, a phone call or even a text often ends with us expressing “I love you” in some way.
So it was in the last phone call I had with Jim.
Some will say that time and death always win in the end, trumping youth and its promises. Maybe that’s true, but I believe there are friendships that even time and death can’t touch. The promise has been kept or renewed. The bond continues forever.
I hope you know that kind of friendship. Most of all, I hope you cherish it for the great gift it is.
John Shaughnessy’s four books include The Irish Way of Life: Stories of Family, Faith and Friendship; One More Gift to Give; When God Cheers and Then Something Wondrous Happened. He is assistant editor of The Criterion, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.