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I don’t know how it happened, but apparently I’ve got a heart.

Now, when I was little, I was a total softie. I hated to see anyone suffering or even sad. Once, after we’d gone fishing up at my grandparents’ farm (yes, I spent half my childhood on a farm), we’d stopped at my grandfather’s general store to grab a Coke* for the drive back (yes, my grandfather owned the town general store). In the truck bed, there was a five-gallon bucket filled with bream we’d caught, which we were taking home for my mom to clean and cook. But while my dad and brothers were inside rehydrating and goofing off, the thought of those poor little fish being gutted got to me, so I grabbed the bucket, dashed across the road, jumped a cattle gap, scaled a couple of barbed-wire fences, dumped the entire bucket into an unused pond, and made it back to the truck before anyone had noticed. Afterward, my brothers were furious, but my dad and grandaddy just kinda laughed.

Since then, I’ve become considerably more bitter and jaded and impatient and aloof. I no longer have the time or patience for people who can’t manage on their own. That includes the queen of disaster magnets, my mom (adoptive, not biological).

So what a shock it was when I got an email the other day from a friend I hadn’t seen in years–a friend who grew up with me, who played on my little league baseball team, who spent a lot of time encouraging me to squeeze a tad more out of life than I ordinarily would’ve. It seems he’s come home to Mississippi, sort of at a low point. Now, I know him well, and I’ve seen him hit slumps before, and I know he always bounces back. Still, he sounded so sad…

Well, long story short (Ed note: a little late for that), like everyone’s favorite holiday greenie-meanie, my heart grew three sizes that day, and I cancelled as many plans as possible so I could drive up to see him this weekend. It won’t be a long visit–just an afternoon–but I feel like I’ve just got to make the effort. Fact of the matter is, he’s the polar opposite of Kirstie Alley: he’s one of those people you can’t help but love.

Don’t that just beat all?

*For non-Southerners, “grabbing a Coke” does not necessarily mean purchasing an actual Coke. It could be a Sprite, a Tab, a Fresca, anything. Below the Mason-Dixon Line, “Coke” is the linguistic sibling of “Xerox,” “Jell-o,” “Dumpster,” and “Rollerblade.”