In 1983, I graduated from High School in my Junior year and came to Philadelphia to attend Philadelphia College of Art. It was here that I was lucky enough to meet the woman who would become my best friend, Cricket. Her father was diagnosed with lung cancer the day of her Senior prom, and died before the start of college. Her mother had prevailed on her to go to school, believing that would be the best for her daughter. Cricket has inherited her mother Barbara's sensibility.

Shortly after college, whilst the rest of us were floundering, Cricket moved home to take care of her ailing mother. Barbara was diagnosed some terrible, lethal neuropathy which was slowly disabling her. The doctors were not sure what they were dealing with and it became unclear whether the illness or the cure was worse. Through it all, Barbara showed incredible strength, humour and grace. In all the years I knew her, she only once spoke to me of her very real fear of dying. The way Barbara coped with her increasingly shrinking world was by reaching out to friends and helping them with their problems. When she died, she left a legacy of caring, hospitality and warmth that lives on in her memory and in Cricket.

Cricket and I bought a brownstone together about a decade ago. It was time for her to come back to the city. We were both working in the scenery business, but my mental illness was spiraling out of control. It was Cricket who took me to the E.R. the first time I had to check myself into a psychiactric ward, who visited me, who fed my cats, who changed their litter. Not my family. And I have stayed in hospitals at least eight times since 2001, often as long as three months. My parents visited just once, the third time I was in.

Over the years, Cricket has made me want to be a better person. She has made me want to live. She has also made me pissed off, because if she wasn't in my life, I could just give up. She has made me laugh my head off and I have wept because of her kindness. I don't know what I have done to deserve a friendship this amazing. My only hope is that everyone gets a relationship this rich and special. Words really seem to fail me when it comes to expressing how amazing the affect Cricket has had on me. But this I can say in all honesty: if it weren't for Cricket, I would be dead. That may not mean much to many, but I know, thank God, that it means the world to her. I love her.