I want to read to you today the speech that I wrote for Chris’s 19th birthday. While it doesn’t go for long, and is full of teenage colloquialism; I believe that it is something that all who knew Chris will be able to relate to.
I have never been very good at giving speeches. To write a speech requires effort and the need to think. This can be hard. What can you write about someone you have known for so long? Not much.
I could start with something cliché, like “You are the coolest friend ever and I love you”. Or I could just use the opportunity to confess that the only reason I ever hung out with him was so that I could steal things from his house to support my crack addiction. All would be true to a certain extent, but it doesn’t explain why we are truly here.
This will be the 7th year that Chris and I have known each other; does this mean we are friends? Friendship is a type of interpersonal relationship that is found among humans and among animals with rich intelligence, such as the higher mammals and some birds. Individuals in a friendship relationship will seek out each other's company and exhibit mutually helping behavior. Does this describe us?
To move to SA from Tasmania was a very hard step for me. A young boy of only 12-almost-13 I didn’t have the slightest clue how to make new friends. Social situations were never my thing, and I would be ever in trouble with the local hoodlums. I was marched into the school that some might know as Belair Primary, armed with a fancy haircut and very short shorts. So bad were the next few weeks that I have forgotten exactly what took place, but one thing is certain; when I emerged from the war-like zone there was Chris, armed with an equally slick haircut and shorts that were not as short as mine.
Chris and I, along with others would spend our innocence riding our bikes down to the local pizza hut with only a $5 note in our pockets. All-you-can-eat buffet was probably about as good as it could get back then. For hours we would eat pizza, pasta and ice-cream, and when we were done we would sit there in the shiny red-leather booths and sleep. Even when we became too old to qualify for a $5 all-you-can-eat, we would just simply lie and so the good times rolled on.
YAG was also another thing that brought Chris and I closer. Fridays Chris and I would put on our walking shoes and head on down to the church, which wasn’t much of a walk because it was next door. Youth Group always had something for us to do and for years we ice-skated, skateboarded, basket-balled, cricketed, foot-balled, table tennis-ed and volley-balled. We ran, jumped, and caught trains down to the city to window shop. We slid down grassy hills on huge blocks of ice, drove for hours to remote farms just so we could play spotlight in the mud. We had such great times together as children.
Sport.
The one thing that threatened our friendship was Chris’s addiction to sport. Cricket this and cricket that, bowling here and bowling there and cricket and bowling everywhere. While I might be exaggerating it still hurt me that Chris found being active a lot more fun than sitting in the dark all hunched over playing computer games. It wasn’t long before we once more found common ground. Chris had a Nintendo 64 and we would play for hours; and me, well I just learned that hiding in the dark was not as cool as I first thought it was.
Even after we moved to different schools we still managed to stick together. Chris took up the drums which in my opinion was the smart thing to do. Percussion is a good way to vent anger and prevents you striking your girlfriend, your friends or even your children; and we can all agree that a Chris in prison is not a very fun Chris at all.
Chris is the boy with the strawberry blond hair, the checkered shoes and the glasses. He’s the boy with the four-pack of ginger beer at a party who seems to have more fun than anyone else. He’s the friend that got his P’s before me and used to drive me home in the rain, the one who would sell me shirts for $3 a pop in an effort to help me clean up my act. He’s the boy with the hair straightened and the fringe that’s kind of cool, but girlish as well.
Love has many meanings in English, from something that gives a little pleasure to something one would die for. It can describe an intense feeling of affection, an emotion or an emotional state. It can also be used to summarise just how we all feel about Chris. To me Chris is more than a friend, but a lover. Like most of the boys here, we’d kiss him given half the chance and we’d sure as hell have his babies but that will most likely never work. So instead we settle for that fact that he is our mate and he does mean so much to us all.
Chris, you are the strawberry sunshine in our lives and the one who’s there to drive us home when it rains, and for that we all are grateful. I want to thank you for the times that we have shared, both good and bad and that you can always be assured that in turn, we will always be there for you.
Chris you will be forever remembered, forever loved, forever my friend.
