Friends

This blog started when I thought about a long time friend who died in 2012.  On February 22, 1947, David was born in Ft. Worth, Texas.  He lived in Texas all his life.  He died in Lubbock, Texas in June of 2012.   We had known each other for 48 years when he passed away.  We were married for fourteen years of that time.  He gave me the two most precious relationships of my life in our two sons.

On Friday, on David's birthdate this year, I stopped and thought about him for a little while when I saw the date on my calendar at work.  In years past I always tried to at least call him on his birthday.  I saw a truck that bore the logo of the company for which he worked that day.  I thought about him some more and remembered some of our fun times together.  I thought about how the day must be hard on his surviving mom and sister.   I went out to eat with my oldest son and his wife, and her visiting sister and brother-in-law that evening.  We toasted their visit at dinner, and I imagined David, smiling and clinking glasses with us.   

Even when someone moves away physically or emotionally or passes away, the remnants of the friendship are there.  David is still a part of me.  Let us not get into the religious questions of where he is or even if he is.  What I know is this; he is, because of the people he knew and touched.  Beyond that, none of us really know because we have not been there.  We can guess, conjure, have faith in what we believe and even preach.  I am not dead, so I really do not have a firm answer on the question of what happens when we die.  I will live a life that attends to being kind to others.  I will be unconditional in my love to the best of my ability.  I will not judge.  I will smile to lift my own spirits and those of the ones I see.  I will do my best to do no harm.  When I do harm, I will make amends to the best of my ability.  As long as I am here on this plane, I will touch and be touched by my relationships, past or present.  When I am no longer on this plane, those who remain will be touched by the relationships I had with them. 

Most of us  have had relationships with others that just didn't quite weather the storms of life.  Maybe the frienship was fine but we left the town, job, social group or neighborhood and lost touch.  Perhaps we just grew into different people and had less in common.  Perhaps there was a traumatic parting of the ways.  Perhaps our time was just for that season.  Although my marriage did not survive, I was able to resume and redefine my friendship with David.  We kept trying.  We spent well over a dozen years not speaking and having no contact.  Our relationship waxed and waned.  I find that to be true of all relationships I have. The connections are always there whether used  or not.  Sometimes the relationship has more components than others.  The more components of the relationship, the more I miss it when connection is lost.

Do you remember that old song, "Make New Friends".  The refrain is "Make new friends, but keep the old, One is silver and the other gold."  That is all I have remembered of the song for decades.  It often runs through my head when I think about old friends. The first verse, I just learned from google, is "A circle is round, it has no end.  That's how long, I will be your friend".  The ever present circle of life is encapsulated in that old Scout song. 

We begin life as a single entity coming into the world of life.  We end life as a single entity leaving it.  In the middle we get to have people around us.  We can pick and choose and get mad when friends betray us, disappoint us, or leave us.  We can also get over being mad.  It is a choice, but we can choose it (See "Grudges" and "Grudges-Next Steps").  We are connected to all those we have known.  If we allow those connections to be damaged and don't try to repair the damage, we are left incomplete and damaged in some way.  The connections become eroded but they are still there.  There are always remnants of all those we have touched that are a part of our total being.  We can have pleasant thoughts when those connections are sparked, or we can have unpleasant ones.  Life is a circle.  Friends at all points along the way, remain a part of that circle.

I confess, I just do not like negative emotions.  I have experienced my fair share of them.  I have transmitted them and received them.  Because I have, and because I decided a couple of decades ago that negative thoughts and emotions were a huge waste of energy, I prefer to think about good things.  I sometimes have to clean out some negative junk, but I do try to clean on a regular basis rather then hoarding a houseful of negativity.   I have friendships that are languishing, but they could always be rekindled if we both decided it was worth the effort.

I sometimes find myself wondering if I have the energy to rekindle old relationships or find new ones.  Sometimes out of failures to find positive new connections or finding negativity in the old ones, I think, the heck with it.  I will just be content with my family.  Then out of the blue, I connect with someone with whom I really do have some things in common and with whom I enjoy chatting.  They may be from my past or they may be new to me.  Humans seek connections.  Despite fears, we are drawn to connections.  Despite failures, we are left connected to all we have known.  An event occurs, it reminds me of an earlier time and place. In that moment,  I feel the connections to those who were with me.  Life is better when I have cleaned out the anger and bitterness, leaving me with the good parts of all my experiences.  I just hate it when a storm cloud blots out the sun.  With regular cleaning, I do not have to experience that.

All my relationships, past and present, are a part of who I am in this moment.
I can harvest good, tasty fruit from that, or I can be plagued with smelly, sticky, stinky weeds.