She's My Friend

For my birthday this summer a friend of mine gave me a little box.  She didn't know this about me, but I've always had a thing for little boxes. Boxes hold treasures and jewelry and presents.  My mother kept little boxes in her top dresser drawer and I loved to look through them.  She had a glove box, a hat box and a pink jewelry box.  The jewelry box was my favorite, full of earrings and long chain necklaces -- none of them expensive and many of them given to her by me.

The box that Josette gave me this past June is hand crafted of sturdy cardboard and is about four inches by three inches in size.  It is the color of a soft paper bag and on each side are glazed somewhat random definitions:  Frau-lein, fray fraz-zle, freak. . . heath, hea-then, har-vest.   Over the definitions are stenciled in black small birds (I think doves) and the words HOPE, dream and love. Josette told me that a friend of hers makes the boxes, and as boxes go (I have several in my top dresser drawer), this one is a keeper.

On the inside cover of the box there is more delicate stenciling of birds and musical notes along with the handwritten words: "There's nothing like light and chocolate to give (you). . . HOPE."

Finally, when I open the box, there is a small coupon inside - similar to the tickets we use for the 50/50 raffle at the football games.  Except that on this coupon is one final definition:

Friend (frend) n. 1. a person whom one knows well and is fond of. 2. an alley, supporter, or sympathizer. 3. loves you for who you are. 4. unconditionally accepts you.

I have often said and am not afraid to say that without my friends, I would be so much sound and fury. Two of the most significant features in my closest friends, be they from high school, college, my working-girl days, my mommy years or this emptying nest place where I find myself right now, are 3. and 4. above:  loves me for who I am (not perfect and inclined to make the same mistakes twice and thrice), and unconditionally accepts me (acknowledging my accomplishments, forgiving me when I come undone).  

A few months before my mother died last year, I was sitting with her in her assisted living home in Holland, Michigan, and a woman walked by -- I had seen her before, her mother was living down the hall from my mom.  

"Do you see her?" my mom asked.

"Yes," I said, "isn't her name Sue?"

"Yes, Sue," my mom said slowly and with confidence, "she's my friend."

She's my friend.  It's the ultimate compliment and for me a tremendous safety net.  Trite as it sounds, true friendship is a powerful treasure, because it latches on to us and presents itself when we need it the most and often when we least expect it.  And true friendship spans the miles and the years.  Not necessarily in the talk every day kind of way, but in the "I get you" kind of way.

I found out last week that a good friend of mine, Carolyn, was recently diagnosed with liver cancer.  She's in Chicago. Her husband, Tim, married Al and me.  She is in the hospital right now, undergoing a battery of tests and procedures, which at best are making her uncomfortable, at the very worst are making her sicker.  I have been thinking about Carolyn and holding on with her, Tim and their children and grandchildren.

This post is dedicated to Carolyn and to Tim - my friends (see definition, above).

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

 --Abe Lincoln.