Friends Too

 

No, I’m not going to write a review of the old television series. I’m really going to talk about friends, real people that you know.

We all, I hope, have friends of one sort or another.

 At the one end there are acquaintances. People that you know casually, perhaps at work or a neighbour. You don’t socialize together except maybe as a group. You don’t really know much about this person except what’s related around the water cooler. You probably have many acquaintances, and some may yet become friends.

Then there are people you call friends. People you know more about and with whom you have common interests. You may know them through work, recreation, church, organizations, family or neighbours. You like these people and are able to discuss many subjects with them. Some of these friends you may have known for a long time, or they may be fairly recent.  You bond with these people and work at keeping their friendship. I must admit that I have friends all across this country. I feel I’m lucky to have these friends.

But among friends, there are special friends, those with whom you share a special bond. It may be a shared history or an event that shaped your lives. These are people you can confide in and share their confidence. I think that I have a few such friends who have helped me, nurtured me and shared life experiences with me. In one case it is a couple who I’ve know for almost 60 years and in another is woman who I have known for only three. But they are very treasured by me. One of the attributes of a good friend is that you can have divergent ideas about something, but can still listen to and respect each other’s point of view. I always believed that the secret to a marriage or long term relationship was to be each other’s best friend.

How about a long-lost friend? I had such an encounter recently.  I was in Hamilton, where I grew up, to attend a get together to honour the death of a high school friend, one of three of us that were good friends in high school. He and the second friend both became doctors, I obviously did not. At the get together, I actually met up with the third friend, the one I had been closest to.  I had not seen him in 62 years.  We talked for just a few minutes but exchanged contact information and have been in e-mail contact ever since. Slowly, we are catching up with each other’s lives with the promise to keep in touch as much as we can. It is, for me, an example that close friendships can last even when touch has been lost, and the possibilities when they are found.

“You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.”
  - George Burns