The Gift of Friendship

"Little girl...Little girl...Can you come out to play? Gosh, those words were spoken 56 years ago, but I can still hear them clear as if it was yesterday. We'd just moved into our first home, and I was settling into my new room when I heard her calling me. Kathleen was my first ever friend, and the bonds we struck that day were to last through the decade. We stuck together like glue...friends forever....or so we thought. We'd just entered high school when Kathy's parents bought a new and larger home...in another town clear across the state. For awhile, we continued to keep in touch, but gradually our contacts became less and less frequent...until the time came when our ties were severed forever for as we neared our late teens, both of us were headed in different directions. Kathleen was the intellectual, the college bound girl while I was the one who had some wild oats to sow before I settled down. The last I heard of Kathleen she was headed off to college, and I was headed to make my mark in New York.

Friendships can be our most enduring and important relationships. It can last a lifetime as we travel the journey of life together, or it may simply run its course, but leave us with memories that we will cherish forever. Friendship plays an important role in our lives. A friend can help us to grow, to make us more than we were. They can alter our lives in the profoundest of ways and introduce us to things we have never been a part of. We can share our experiences, the very fabric of our souls. Friends help us to overcome the challenges we face at different stages in our lives.

I have never really had very many true friends, and those that I have had, I have truly come to appreciate. I've had many 'acquaintances' , but acquaintances come and go. Sadly, there were times in my life that I sacrificed 'me' in order to make a friend...but was that really a friend? I think not. I often wondered why I didn't have so many friends while those around me seemed to be swamped by them, and then I realized that it wasn't that they had so many friends. It was just that they happened to 'know a lot of people.'

True friendship isn't something that we should take lightly; it is a gift, a gift that lasts forever. Kathleen may have been physically gone from my life for many a year, but she will always remain in my heart. The path to life is 'connection' with others. So, as this holiday rolls around, my newly found blog friends, give yourself the gift of thinking about the special friendships which have nourished you throughout your life. Treasure them for they all came into our lives for a reason.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.--George Eliot