Yesterday I awakened to an early morning message from my best-oldest best friend, who I have often described as “the one into whose arms I fell” when I was in 7th grade, the one who saved me as a newbie in junior high. She wrote, “I am feeling full of love and appreciation for the important people in my life. Just wanted you to know.”
And last week, a friend that I haven’t spent much time with since she moved in 1992 or 1993 drove all the way from Chapel Hill to stand beside our family at Mom and Dad’s burial. She’s the one who wouldn’t let me go to D.C. alone in May, when I made the trip to the Capitol to try to secure a burial date from Arlington National Cemetery.
Tonight, one of my closest friends is driving up from the Bay Area to join the weekly Caregivers’ Social Club.
There are more.* I don’t know how I rate these friends in my life. But I’m not complaining.
Long ago, I picked up a cheesy book full of aphorisms by a Canadian talk show host named Merle Shain (When Lovers Are Friends). This quote always stuck with me:
“(Friends) are like the pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up, and sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it’s just enough to know they’re standing by.”
So much is written about the value of friends, particularly the value of female friends to one another. I love writing – anyone who stops by here can figure that out – but when I try to express in words what these friendships mean to me, I feel like a fish. My jaw moves up and down, but no words come out.
So here I am this morning, speechless, wordless, overflowing with love for the blessings in my life. I don’t know how I would have gotten through the past years without them. I hope I can be half the support to them that they are to me.
*Wendi, Tracy, Sandy, Judee, Tamalon, Collette, Nancy, Cheryl, Deb…
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