THE VERY BEST OF BEST FRIENDS ARE TRIED, TRUE, and more important than we sometimes admit. With them, we share our highest highs and lowest lows. Without them, what might have been the best of times becomes something less than that. In the most fortunate of circumstances our best friend is also our life mate ---bound to us by deep love and matrimonial promises. YET FOR EVERY GREAT BLESSING THERE IS A POTENTIAL DOWNSIDE. What if we lose one or more of those "best friends?" Losing one can leave us disoriented and vulnerable. Losing both a spouse and a best friend risks an emotional meltdown. AGE AND ILLNESS THREATEN TO ROB AARON PECK OF THAT COMPANIONSHIP leaving him to consider the emptiness and longing their leaving would create. His best friend, Johnny Blanton, is battling a balky heart, viewing life from the ICU. His wife, Leona, has retreated behind an impenetrable veil of dementia. In time she will no longer know who he is, or recall the promises he made to her so long ago. Though she cannot remember, Aaron cannot forget, even in the face of Beverly Weathers' comforting and sometimes distressing presence.