Special Friends

I’ll reconnect with several dear friends in the months ahead - after two or three or four years and even after five years! With all my friends I have a context that endures because it is built on the strong foundation of time spent together and experience shared, it has been tested by the ups and downs that beset relationships. The rapport with each individual  friend is painted in a different hue – ranging from carefree morning walks on green hills or happy laughter on sunny afternoons, to sober conversations during thoughtful evenings or dark nights of heart-stopping cinema noir. With each special friend I share a cache of carefully kept memories - a birthday card, a book gifted at Christmas, a music CD from a special day -  and of course the numerous images in my mind, clearer than any picture taken with a camera.  

It strikes me how unique each relationship is and how unlike every other, just as my friends are so frequently dissimilar from one another. Each liaison is a matchless bond with its own code and characteristics, where two people carry something precious and value what they have. If one ceases to carry it because it is not valuable enough, then it can hold no worth for the other, who drops it too. I think about how people shape their associations as well as each other, how one person is a certain way because of how the other is. Perhaps this is why when one of a couple dies, the other ceases to be the person he/she was with the one who's passed away and in effect two people are gone...  

This week’s connection is with a special friend that I have known for nearly 14 years.  It is wonderful to reminisce and speak of how our lives have changed – children grown up, settled, married; careers evolved or left behind; even life goals achieved. We once shared our New Year resolutions and policed each other, promising to be accountable. We spoke about the paths we wanted to follow and where we hoped they would take us. Now we laugh over a bottle of wine, smiling over past memories, impatient to hear stories from these recent years, sharing plans for the future. We know our framework is strong and our attachments will live as long as we do!