Friends
The older I get the more I realize how remarkable it is to have had such wonderful friends. I watch my own 17 year old daughter and her sweet friends, and I remember how tremendous my own were and are. These were not just folks with whom I had a good time. These are the kind of friends who save your life. Every day. They loved me and prayed for me and trusted me and lifted me up. They thought I was funny and right and okay and all those things you think you probably are not when you are an adolescent. They are the holders of all knowledge of you, but they love you anyway. You can talk and talk and talk and listen and listen and be very quiet for a long time and it is all good.
Carol is my very first friend in the world. She was born one month after I was and we have known each other ever since. She lived on my same block. She knows my aunts and uncles and grandparents and my sisters and my mother. She knew my father. My husband never even knew my father. My new friends don't even know my maiden name. And I know her mom and her dad and her brothers and her houses and her boyfriends. We lived on the same street, went to the same elementary school, same church, and saw each almost every day for 17 years. All that and she still loves me and I still love her.
Lisa became our friend we were teenagers, but we became the three musketeers. Lisa was fearless and fun and faithful. She was much better at flirting than we were. We just sat back and watched. Then she fell in love. No more flirting. Wow.
I met my friend Deb when I went to college. The day we met we talked for hours, saying over and over, "I know! I know!" Even now when I have these strange ideas that I cannot really articulate very well,I think, "Deb would know what I mean."
These best friends of mine live far away from me now and I don't see them very much anymore, but they are still my very very special friends. When we do touch base, we pick up as if we saw each other yesterday.
These friends did not just entertain me, they prayed for me. They did not just make me laugh, they held me together when I could only cry. And I know they still would.
I hope and pray that our own children are so blessed.
posted by kim @ Thursday, September 01, 2005
2 comments
2 Comments:
Well this is my second attempt to comment. My first didn't go through since I was trying to get into this blog world and it didn't work the first time! So let's try again!
Wow I felt kind of like a celebrity or something being mentioned in your blog because you are such a great writer my dear friend! So you will be gracious to me and excuse all my grammer and obvious snoozing during my English classes. That's what best friends do right ????? Even ones that are former English teachers right????? Ha!!
It was so good to talk to you on the phone the other night. It can be long periods of time we don't talk and yet when we do it's as if you were right here all along and we talk of tragedy and kids and laugh and say I love you.
I love that I can sit here and remember tons of memories that make up our friendship. I love that I can still remember being I don't how old--9,10,11,12 your dad would come by my house and visit with my parents a while then take me back to play with you on Ford St and then when you moved to Mart Ct.
I can still see his thick, black, curly hair.I remember conversations we would have in the car and I remember his smile and laugh the most. I'm sure that is what I was drawn to, your family was just plain fun to be around!!We have tons and tons of memories I just think Kim and something of our life pops in my head... spending the night when my baby brother was born,easter egg hunts at Van Dyke CofC, sitting in Bro Bradshaw's 5th grade bible class,going to the fair with Barry,
MDYC,MCYC,TAB,(those are a million stories in themselves huh???)the guy with the blue,curly,eyelashes from like the 8th grade??? at that hayride???Ha....can still see him too...losing your dad, somehow surviving,high school,boyfriends, somehow surviving, college, somehow surviving, marriage,children...yeah!!!!were still in... happily surviving...
As I reflect on our frienship the bottom line is what has held it together through every stage of our lives the good, the bad, the ugly, is Christ. He has always been the center and when we got off center we went back to him to make us right. He was who we turned to, to help us with our friendship, our boyfriends, the darkest times, and to just move on into the world without the securityof the physical presence of our friendship at our sides.
Only inChrist do we have such wonderful gifts of courage and memories of a lifetime to sustain usforthis life's journey. I have always consisdered it an honor for you to count me as your friend and still do to this day. Thank you dear friend for the flood of memories that can come to my mind with just saying your name....what a blessing!!!
How fun to hear from you, friend! Welcome to the blog world1 We have great memories and I plan to make more! When are we getting together, eh??
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