Life is full of surprises, isn’t it? They come in many shapes and sizes and have the capacity to deliver all different types of news. My favorite surprises, though, come in the form of friendships. More than once in my relatively short history I’ve been able to look back and trace large parts of my life back to a single person. It’s pretty impressive how transformative a friend can be in our lives, especially considering the hundreds or thousands of people we come to know by name out of the eight billion of us on the planet. Nevertheless, I’d venture to guess that you have a person or two in your life with whom you can follow the breadcrumbs ...