Big Good Anchors

A dozen years ago, writer Cintra Wilson opened her epitaph for her best friend and lover, Kevin Gilbert, with the paragraph below. I’m reviving it because it’s wasted on the dead and it’s a good description of what my friends mean to me.

Certain people are like big good anchors in your life that hold you to the world, that give you a sense of exalted, meaningful belonging and true comradeship in the highest sense. They are co-conspirators, people who get all the jokes. When someone understands you that well, you can never truly feel alone in the world.

In Memoriam, Cintra Wilson, Salon, May 27, 1996