For Luke.

We are often told in childhood that friends are the most important relationships we will ever have and often as children we will have best friends who we chop and change like the wind. For some of us, we are lucky enough to have wonderful friendship which develop from childhood right through to our adult years. For others, we make numerous and lasting friendships throughout our lives and often significant friendships develop when we are much older. I have been lucky enough to have a mixture of such friendships but I wanted to talk about my special friend Luke. I have blogged about him before but sometimes its really lovely to re-evaluate friendships.

I first met Luke about 4 years ago when we were in completely different circumstances and I really don't know where our friendship developed from but there was something special about this 17 year old young man which struck a cord in me. He was open, generous, honest and not afraid to tell you what he thought, which at the time was refreshing and he certainly knew who he was. For someone of his age, Luke came across as very mature, and someone who could handle what life threw at him. Over the years and as our friendship has developed, it has become apparent that beneath his skin is a gentle and generous heart, a man who would do anything for his family and friends and who can achieve a great deal given the right motivation and opportunities.
He got himself a place at university to study nursing and in less than 2 months he will qualify as a ''real nurse''   ( a standing joke between us as friends). He has found himself an amazing job and will graduate in front of his family later this year. For him, this has not been the greatest of years as he has had to deal with the generally challenging life of living as a student, coping with bereavement and loss of various kinds and continually striving to attain academic greatness.

I am so darned proud of him, and I tell him that but sometimes I dont think he really believes me. Even if I shouted it from the top of the university I think he'd laugh or think I'd been drinking. For me he is the best friend I could have. He has seen me at my best and at my worst, he is a great listener, he has a maturiy above his years and gives some of the best advise. Sometimes he gives some dodgy but well meant advise but on the whole I have to say he is consistently right the majority of the time. I will forgive him the fact that he buys his clothes from Topshop (we had a different name for it when I was younger which he doesnt approve of and is abit rude so unrepeatable here), his terrible taste in TV he's always watching some dreadful reality programme
because he has so many other qualities which outweigh those 100%. The fact he can cook an amazing roast dinner from scratch is well worth the trip up North alone. And he would do anything for you if he could.

So in celebration of his friendship I am gonna play a song. I heard it first on a TV programme and found it via Shazam. It's quite a boppy little number so I'm sure he'll appreciate that, but it's the words which I thought seemed most appropriate.