Jacob Clabes: ‘Unexpected friends’ can happen; embracing them can become unexpectedly wonderful

On Thursday morning, after finishing my hurried morning routine of rousing my three sleepy kids, preparing the day’s lunches and spiriting them off to their respective schools, I returned home and stood before my desk to begin the day. Like any other morning, the chatter of the news was on in the background as I went about my usual business.

On this particular morning, an unusual solemnity interrupted the babble of political pundits and anchors mid-way through the morning, as the casket of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings was transported by a uniformed military honor guard into the nation’s capital, where, after a brief ceremony, it would lie in state. After a long and storied career of service, Cummings would be the first African-American to receive such an honor.

The majority of the nation’s leaders, with one notable exception, joined Cummings’ family in the Capital’s Statuary Hall to pay respects to a man whose career was noted by meticulous respect, dignity and honest progress, not just for the district in Baltimore, Maryland which he represented, but for the country as a whole.

Those paying respects included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Representative Mark Meadows, whose friendship with Cummings was brought to light with their unified stance during committee meetings surrounding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation during which Cummings staunchly defended his friend who had been accused of being racist.

Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, represents the state’s 11th congressional district, a largely rural area made up of 90-plus percent white voters anchored by the town of Asheville. It is a district split by Democratic-leaning southern counties and Republican-leaning northern counties whose political races have been historically hard-fought.

Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, represented the state’s 7th congressional district encompassing a large part of inner-city Baltimore with a voting population of 60 percent black and 35 percent white. It is a decidedly Democratic district Cummings has held since a 1996 special election to replace Kweisi Mfume, who resigned the seat to become head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The two men, by all accounts, as well as their own admissions, come from very different worlds.

Cummings and Meadows found some way to close the gap created by those demographics and miles and arrive at a place few politicians in these turbulent times can not, or have no desire to, reach. Theirs was a mutual respect underscored by Cummings’ admission that Meadows had become ‘one of my best friends.’

As he stood before Cummings’ flag-draped casket on Thursday, Meadows, visibly shaken, spoke not just of Elijah Cummings the leader, an example for the ages, but of the unlikely friendship forged between two very different men in a time when such relationships have become almost taboo.

“Some have classified it as an unexpected friendship,” Meadows said. “But for those of us who know Elijah, it’s not unexpected or surprising.”

This was a beautiful moment in a political landscape where beautiful moments are so very few. It was, indeed, a beautiful moment, period.

The previous evening, I had the privilege of some time with some ‘unexpected’ friends of my own. A varied crew of the professional and ‘not-so’ professional, they are bartenders and bar-backs, artists and musicians. They are chefs and waitresses, some ‘lifers’ and some on their way somewhere else. They are gay and straight, bi-sexual and questioning. These probably aren’t the kind of friends my neighbors in the predominately white upper-middle-class neighborhood in which I live would expect of this single, middle-aged father of three. Some of those neighbors may not even approve.

But these friendships, the ones that might seem a little out of place to some, or ‘unexpected,’ have become those I hold most dear. They’re the ones I most trust, those I find to be most genuine.

I did not go out into the world looking for these people. They found me. And they were, indeed, most unexpected. I could not be more grateful.

I saw a meme the other day with a gif of two young boys, one white, one black, whose faces exploded with joy as they ran toward each other on the sidewalk and embraced in an awkward hug. The smiles on their little faces reminded me of youthful innocence. If only society could return to that kind of youthful innocence we only have as children, to a mindset where politics, skin color, sexual orientation, financial status, or our differences didn’t set the tone for our level of acceptance, our friendships. There are so very many things about this current world I know now as an adult I would give back to return us to that place.The unlikely friendship forged between Mark Meadows and Elijah Cummings teaches us a great deal about relationships and acceptance, and how they can work against all pre-conceived notions.

These two men, from very different worlds, embraced an ‘unexpected’ bond and gave this nation a glimpse of exactly what it needs.

Jacob Clabes is associate publisher of the NKyTribune and a journalist who studied at the University of Kentucky and had internships in Washington, D.C., Memphis and Frankfort. He is a graduate of Beechwood High School.