Weekend With Peter

The person that is part of my life here in Canada that I know the longest is my friend Peter. We became friends while experiencing our church-motivated teenage years back in Germany. During some of these years Peter was actually the drummer for my band that I had going at that time. Later, after I already moved to Winnipeg in the early 90's, Peter decided to come to Winnipeg to study business at the same College that I took music courses and we were able to expand our friendship even further. Now, after more than 26 years of friendship, Peter lives in Winnipeg with his wife (and also dear friend) Tara and heir daughter Mila. Like many things in life our relationship has adapted itself to the many forms of our changing environments but somehow we were able to maintain the strong bond that survived the years.

Last week Peter and I decided that we would go away for a couple of days, and so we did yesterday and today. Peter joined me in the morning for my radiation session and then we took off to Grand Forks for a night. I have to say that I had a fantastic time. We talked a lot, did a bit of shopping, had good (well, Grand Forks style) food and played Wii in our hotel room till the early morning hours. I was very concerned about my fatigue during this trip but I had so much fun and distractions that I just kept going throughout the day.

As we were reflecting on the journey that each one of us took during their lives (separately and yet somehow together) we thought: What if somebody would have told us when we were 14 and playing in a band somewhere in Germany, that we would be living virtually next to each other somewhere in the depths of Canada and that we would be sitting in a Grand Forks restaurant trying to deal with my cancer situation? The road that life often takes is strange. Somehow that notion of unpredictability of time was comforting to me.

Thank you for a wonderful trip, Peter! To 26 more years of friendship.