Those of you who have children know that one of the perks of being a parent is “bringing into your family” the friends of your kids.
I am always moved and inspired by loyal, long-term friendships. Our daughter, Abbie, and her best friend Sarah have been as loyal as they come. For just over twenty years now, they have been pretty much like sisters. Well, maybe not quite – I can’t recall any bickering, sniveling, teasing or fighting between these two.
For a long while during primary school they called themselves “Sarabs.” They did everything together. For some time they even dressed alike. Carpooling was a blast because they both love to sing, and anytime I drove them somewhere, they was no need to turn on the radio. These girls were always there for each other as they made their way through thirteen years at the same school. They did their homework together, they took dance classes together, they wrote and directed “plays” together. There were countless lemonade stands, swim meets and sleepovers. As they got older, there were softball games, art classes, concerts, vacations and dates to share. Even though they attended different colleges and now live in different cities, they are still BFF. Having Abbie home for a visit last week meant having Sarah back, too. Eddie and I have always considered her our other daughter.
It’s been such fun and such a privilege watching these two grow up and stay so close over all these years. Everyone should have at least one long lasting relationship like this one in his or her life.
2 comments:
Beautiful entry. May I share from two books I love?
from Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winter, written while pondering Beth Kephart's Into the Tangle of Friendship.
"I don’t have childhood friends, not the kind of friends who were born two days after you and then you were in the same play group and you went to school together and now that you’re forty-five you vacation together every year and you know each other better than chemists know the periodic table….. There are a few people out there with whom you fit just so, and, amazingly, you keep fitting just so even after you have growth spurts or lose weight or stop wearing high heels. You keep fitting after you have children or change religions or stop dyeing your hair or quit your job at Goldman Sachs and take up farming. Somehow, God is gracious enough to give us a few of those people, people you can stretch into, people who don’t go away, and whom you wouldn’t want to go away, even if they offered to."
from Into the Tangle of Friendship
"There are some people for whom friend making is effortless. They smile, they crack a joke, they shrug insouciantly, they offer something up, accept what has been offered, balance themselves delicately upon the threshold. And when the door unlatches, they’re in.
More often than not, though, the launch of a friendship is an imperiled endeavor, requiring the ability to acutely size up the instant at hand and adapt with intelligence, grace, speed.... Consciously or subsconsciously, assessments are made... No amount of practice makes the process perfect, for every stranger brings his or her own tempo and neediness to the arrangement. There’s plenty of opportunity to err on the side of stinginess or excess…"
Thank you for beautiful friendship story. --KB
I too believe in friendship. Enjoy the company of my friends on travels& trips.
Post a Comment