Most of the time, people appear in your life almost as in a passing parade, they come and they go. Particularly in the music business, when a performer becomes popular, the parade becomes a flood. On one tour to the Caribbean in the early 1980s I actually counted the number of times I was introduced to someone over a four-week period; it added up to almost 200 persons. Most of these are people I would have seen once or twice and rarely again.
But to look back on one’s life is to notice that for most of us, in the course of that flood, a handful of individuals emerges as an integral part of your life, as very special companions. Often living miles and even continents apart, your lives are permanently intertwined; you reach out to each other, in good times and bad; you revel in each other’s successes; hardly a month goes by without some form of contact.
One of the bases of the bond is that you share the same values; you get angry or happy about the same things; you share a similar sense of humour, love of the arts, sometimes even the same food. But it goes further in that you become like brothers under the skin. The current saying “Close friends are the family you choose for yourself.” gets close to defining it. These people, not part of your blood, are indeed part of your family. They are very important to you. Your relationship is integral. It sustains. It nourishes.
For that handful of persons – you’re lucky if you have 5 or 6 – a strange kind of cyclical memory kicks in if you haven’t been in touch for a while. It is almost as if some inner part of your soul notices the lack of connection and you find yourself propelled to touch base with these pillars
Sometimes some of those people are a few minutes from where you live – in my case, Colin Cholmondeley in Subryanville – but, in the migration-prone world of today, they can be hundreds of miles away. It doesn’t matter; at hand or away, the bond lives.
For me, it was like that with Terry Ferreira, whom I met in Toronto in the Tradewinds’ “We Place” in the 1970s – there was that instant connection. I moved to Cayman, he moved to New Jersey, and later I moved to Guyana, but the connection, perhaps initiated by our Guyanese roots, continued throughout. Mind you, we don’t see everything the same way – 20/20 cricket for example – but overall there is a comity and amity between us that transcends anything else. (Terry, by the way, is the man who made that amazing bicycle ride, largely alone, from Guyana to Toronto years ago to raise awareness of mental health issues.)
Vic Fernandes, in Barbados, was our Tradewinds agent in that island when we were a touring band, but my connection to Vic, from day one, went beyond that. There was a blending of souls there that began early and grew until now Vic is as close to a blood brother as a man can get. The mutuality between us is almost tangible; others close to us recognize it.
Tradewinds long-time Trinidadian drummer Clive Rosteing is another one in that small inner circle. This one took some time developing, but over the thousands of hours we spent together in the band, our relationship moved from colleague to buddy. Clive knows more about me and my life than almost any other person, and the fact that we have become close and remain close (he in Cayman; I in Guyana) is, on reflection, a clear barometer of who we are as people.
Important in my life, too, was Bobby Clarke from St. Lucia who lost a grinding battle with cancer a few years ago. As with Vic and Terry, we were instant friends. Bobby with his booming laugh and mercurial ways was a delightful man, and he clearly found delight in me, as well. For over 25 years, although we lived far apart, hardly a month went by without some contact, however brief, between us. I played at Bobby’s marriage to his lovely wife Angela, and I sang at his funeral in the cathedral at Castries – the only time I’ve ever done that. To this day, in trying times, Bobby will come into my mind with that booming laugh and his “Come le’ we go have a green coffee.” Although departed, he remains part of me.
With all of these men, it goes beyond friendship into a clear sense of brotherhood. We are connected to each other, intimately connected, forever. However, a note of caution: this is a very nebulous even mysterious process – it can be sudden, but it can also take a long time to consolidate, and you can be wrong about these things. It’s really a kind of platonic love when you come down to it, and you know how it is with love – it isn’t always returned. In my case, shortly after I returned home to live, I met a young Guyanese entrepreneur who was doing some innovative things in business here. He was disciplined, determined to set standards, and also good fun to gaff with. I enjoyed his company. As it turned out, our friendship never got past that original ignition; it didn’t become one of those pillars. So you will be disappointed, but then that’s part of the process. The ones you end up close to in some way, in fact in many ways, are special people with clear affinities to your spirit and once established they are with you forever. Obviously, such persons are rare, but you are going to find them, and they you.
Ultimately these individuals are special to you because they are special themselves. You’re better for knowing them. You’re more aware. You’re more open. You’re more vulnerable. In some mysterious manner, you have gone into the very core of each other. Not part of your family by blood, they are family you have acquired. You will grow old with them, and even when the life of one of them ends, they remain, just as your blood family remains, imbedded in the fabric of your life.
Over time, spontaneously, continuously, there is solace from this inner few, and support, and sharing. You grow from these interactions, mistakes are revealed, emotions are released, concerns are raised, the innermost is expressed, and – here’s the key – all those things take place freely because you have somehow reached a trust with that person that propels that freeness. If you think about it, that is actually family behavior, and you have reached it with people who initially had no link whatsoever to you.
It is true for all human beings that in some measure we have all found these companions of the soul in our lives, and to think about them is to realize how much of the comfortable foundation in one’s life is owed to them; without them, one’s life is simply not quite as sweet.
As the years go by, I have come to see how much of my life is interwoven with my handful of companions, how much texture they add to it, how much of a bond there is. And I know without asking that you have the same bond with your companions. And why not? After all, they are family. Acquired family, perhaps, but still family.
