"Make new friends, but keep the old,
One is silver and the other's gold."
Friendship. I know you. I remember the time. What do I/we know about friendship? I know that my friends share my life with me, the good times, the bad times. I know that while I've had many friends in my 42 years, the large majority are lost to me now. Lost? No. Can I forget the day that my best friend (at the time) ran away and I was the only one who knew where to look for her? Or the time that I stepped on a nail and the next day, when I could barely walk, my friends gathered round me to pray for a healing on my foot. And what about the time I went into labor at work and didn't know it.
When I was in kindergarten, I was walking home from school one day and a sixth grader and I started talking. Something happened in the conversation and she took off her charm bracelet. (They were "in" at the time.) It had all the islands of Hawaii on it. She asked, "If I give this to you, will you promise to take good care of it?" I must have said yes because I still have it in my jewelry box. We moved shortly after that and I don't remember ever seeing or talking to her again. But I remember her fondly as my friend.
In friendship, age doesn't seem to matter. My girlfriend's mother was just as much a friend to me when I was a teenager as my girlfriend was. As a matter of fact, I kept up with her long after I lost track of her daughter. Race doesn't seem to play a part either. When we lived in a small Pennsylvania town, Dr. Watson (a prominent black psychiatrist) and I used to sing together at night while he played the piano. I can still hear his mellow baritone voice singing "Danny Boy", and I still cry for both the beauty and pain in his song. He was the one I went running to when it looked like we were going to move again. I asked him if could move in with them - his wife, his nephew (my age) my friends.
Sometimes, friendships are painful. Like the time the guy I had a crush on had a crush on my girlfriend and would write her love notes using only the first letters of each word and dashes to represent the rest of the letters. She used to give them to me to decipher and, because she was my friend, I always did. Or the times that my boyfriend/lover and I would take my girlfriend out - to concerts, to dinner, to the movies - with us because we knew she didn't have a date. Later I found out he was sleeping with both of us. I dumped him and eventually they married. But they were both my friends and I cherish the fun I had with both of them, separately and together.
And what about those other friends? The ones we don't always "count". Like the guy who works at the Circle K that watched me - a newly relocated, divorced, single parent - raise my three year old daughter. She's in college now. But whenever I stop in to get a cup of coffee, or maybe a pack of gum, he still asks about her. Or the place I take my laundry. Several years ago, I left Tampa for a job in New York city. A couple of years later I came back and dropped off my clothes and linens (I'm a massage therapist and go through a lot of sheets) at that same laundry. The next day, when I went back to pick them up, the owner came out and said excitedly, "I knew you were back. I recognized your sheets!"
I've heard it said that in today's world, friendship seems almost a lost art. That in this fast-paced, got-to-make-it world, people have acquaintances and their friendships seem to be ones of convenience or smart positioning rather than fulfilling expressions of relationship. But I don t buy it. I think friendship is the art of recognizing yourself in the people that are in your world, both the old and new, and being willing to share your life, your time, your love. Because you are doing that, whether you know it or not, anyway. Someone once said, "Strangers are only friends I haven't met yet." I think that's true. So, thank you my friend for all the riches you have provided me, where ever and whoever you are and may be.
Linda Mayberry, a licensed massage therapist, has lead seminars and trained hundreds of people in the art of living your life powerfully. She is the new JOY course manager at Global Relationships in Tampa, Florida. (813) 935-3712