BJ in Things That I'm Grateful For

Today I made a pointless post on Facebook (as if I ever post anything worthwhile) that said, "I miss my waterbed." My friend BJ responded by saying, "I miss your waterbed, too."

That may seem like a harmless joke, but to me it means quite a lot.

I've mentioned before how people were mean to me, and BJ was the first person who was nice to me. To be honest, I don't know much about him. I didn't know much about him then and I don't really know much about him now. However, his character then and his character now has spoken about the kind of people we all should be.

He sat in the back row of Ms. Soren's science class. He wasn't the best student, in fact, he was kind of the class clown. I always sat in the back in those days. I wanted to blend into the walls and disappear so that for just one minute people would stop. Every day, though, when I got to Ms. Soren's class, BJ would greet me like I was his favorite person.

Of course being so young, 7th grade, and not quite understanding feelings the way I did then, I thought I had a big crush on him. And part of me did. More importantly, I was grateful that I had a friend.

I made a joke back to him on Facebook, something about wishing he'd been in my bed. He liked the comment. Sixteen years later and he still makes me feel better about myself, that may not be the story of great friendships but it's certainly what makes up great character.