Find Out Who Your Friends Are

Good morning, my Lovelies!

It is time once again for me to get a few thoughts out of my head (maybe more than a few) and I just know that each and every one of you is itching to hear what has been floating around up there. Well, maybe not, but y'all love me and will humor me anyway.

I don't know if this blog will touch you in any way, will make you feel anything, but I know it will me. As most of you know, my father passed away a couple of weeks ago. Neither of my parents has been in particularly good health for quite some time now. And while nobody is ever prepared to lose a loved one, not really, I feel like I had thought about the inevitability enough that I'm handling it better than I thought I would.

Oh, I still have my moments. Believe me when I say I miss my father, but he was in pain and had been in pain for a long time. Maybe it just eases my mind that he is no longer suffering? Maybe it eases my mind that I never had to put him in a nursing facility, which is one thing that he and my mother were adamant about not happening. I don't know, but somehow I'm making it through. (Just to warn you, that doesn't mean I won't burst into tears at any given moment.)

I know that times have changed. I know younger people just don't think about going to funerals and visitations. When I was growing up that was one thing that my parents made sure we did. We always went to pay our respects and offer condolences to the people that we knew, especially those we knew well or family.

As I sat by my dad's casket at the viewing and accepted all my parents' friends' offers of sympathy, I kept looking around. I kept looking through the long line of people waiting to speak with us. And as I looked my heart sank.

Why? I saw family. I saw my parent's friends, neighbors, and fellow church members. I saw people that I grew up with and while I consider them friends, the truth is, they're more my brother's friends than mine. I kind of got looped into friendship with these people by association.

No. I didn't see one person standing there who was there specifically to support me. That broke my heart. 

Look, I get it. We've all grown up, grown apart, moved away, and are scattered all over the world right now. But I'm good friends with quite a few people who still live in my hometown or close by. Now, maybe they just couldn't be there, I don't know. I mean, I do understand that people have lives and obligations and sometimes you just can't make it to things you'd like to do. I really do get it. It just hurt.

So, there I was trying to deal with the fact that my father had passed, that my mother would now need full-time, live-in help, trying to remember who all these people were after not seeing them for 30 years or more, all while trying to keep an eye on my mother who had JUST gotten out of the hospital herself, as well as keep an eye on my niece's children (she currently has her own football team), my heart being heavy because I felt alone even amongst the chaos, and I look up and immediately burst into tears.

Why? You see, the woman who became my best friend when I was six years old was practically running down the aisle of the funeral home chapel toward me. And that, more than anything, is what this blog is about. 

Friendship.

When I was six years old I started a new school. My kindergarten friends for the most part wouldn't be seen nor heard from again until we reached middle school. I remember my mother dropping me and my brother off at the bus stop that day and then driving away.

I was scared to death, but I knew everything was going to be fine because my big brother was there. It didn't take but about five minutes of me standing next to him for him to be ready to ditch me. (He's four and a half years older. Understandable.) You see, at that point, all of his friends had shown up and I was nothing more than the annoying little sister who wouldn't go away.

My brother, out of the goodness of his heart (insert major eye roll here), squatted down so he was eye level with me and through clenched teeth, as sweetly as he could (damn, that one actually hurt my eyes) said as he pointed a few yards away, "See that little girl over there? She looks like she could use a friend. Why don't you go talk to her?"

Embarrassed and defeated, I walked away.

As my anxiety kicked up a notch and sadness at being dismissed slumped my shoulders, I shuffled my way over to the little girl and said hi. She looked up and smiled at me and that was all it took. From that point forward we were pretty inseparable, at least until we hit about middle school age. We were still close after that, but as you know, the older you get, the more people you're introduced to, the harder it is to stay attached at the hip with someone. That's just how life goes.

Anyway, my and Tam's stories differ about the day we met. You see, her story is much shorter and considerably more funny. 

How does she tell it?

"I'd just moved here and was scared to death. I was standing there all alone and I looked up and there you were. You walked over to me, started talking, and just never stopped."

For those of you who haven't met me in person, if you ever do? Get ready. Once I start talking there's almost no stopping. (Well, a few people reading this know how to make that happen 👀- but that's a different blog, different day.)

I'm so incredibly grateful for the almost forty-five years of friendship that Tam and I share. Oh, the stories we have on each other!

Here's what I'm going to end this blog with. Y'all, don't take your loved ones for granted. Don't take your friendships for granted. During the hardest moments of our lives, the moments that break our hearts and shatter our souls, our family and friends become the glue that holds us together.

Until next time and as always,

Much love, friendships, and lifetimes of funny stories from me to you,

Shelly (a/k/a Dawn Love)

Dawn Love's Linktree