I am sure this is not a burning question. It did not keep you awake last night.
“Why would I ask that???” you say to me.
“I’m lucky if I have a friend who is with me NOW!!!!
Besides, 64 is so far away the question is meaningless.”
OK, let’s see if I can change your mind.
Let’s see if I can convince you that your whole life will go better
if you build two or three friendships NOW
with the rare souls who will love you always.
Can you imagine how beautiful it will be to share the joys and sorrows
of every stage of your life with persons who actually CARE?
Persons who knew you from the beginning,
saw the whole thing—the good, the bad, and the scary,
helped you come through the tough times,
and were your precious allies through it all?
Yes, you CAN build these friendships.
And it will make your whole journey more beautiful.
Let’s DO this!
Yearly visit with my protector
Last week my close friend from junior high came for our yearly visit.
As always, he brought his lovely wife and her mother on the two hour drive.
I laid out a spread of sandwiches, strawberries and angel food cake,
and my fiance and I sat out on our porch with them all the sunny afternoon
joyfully sharing stories and jokes of our school years and everything since.
We had missed last year’s visit due to covid so we had some catching up to do!
So who is this guy? Why does he still come see me?
He is my protector. The boy who always looked out for me.
The one who gave me my first Bible when my mother became mentally ill.
She moved our family away in the middle of my junior year in high school.
He still talks about the first time he saw me in English class.
“Your hand was up all the time! You knew every question about poetry and writers.”
He had to find out who I was.
He did, and has loved me ever since, though as he explains it I was too much
for him to handle, so he became my protector instead of my boyfriend.
A sensible man.
We have stayed close over the years through letters, emails and class reunions.
His wife and I are close as well. We both admire him for similar reasons.
My fiance sees what a remarkable man my friend is,
and how important his support of me through all the years has been.
Listening to the two of them gabbing away all that sunny afternoon
I knew it had all worked out right.
How we build loyal friendships
What if our parents and family are no longer there for us?
Illness, accident, divorce…
We are going to need loyal friends, and need them bad.
Before we are in that situation, it is a good idea to look around
and think about the people we are hanging out with.
Which are the ones we will need when the chips are down?
The loyal ones we will need are honest, kind and reliable.
They treat their parents, grandparents, siblings and partners with love and respect.
We need to ask: How do they treat me?
Do they care about my dreams?
Do they seek to understand me?
Do they value who I am?
As we look around at the people we hang out with,
we need to look at ourselves as well.
Are we honest, kind and reliable?
Do we treat our parents, grandparents, siblings and partners with love and respect?
How do we treat our friends?
Do we care about their dreams?
Do we seek to understand them?
Do we value who they are?
Yes, to have a loyal friend we must BE a loyal friend.
We must be for that person the friend we want them to be for us.
The beauty of class reunions
Class reunions are wonderful.
Why?
At each reunion, we get another chance to find our lifelong loyal friends!!!
We may be very surprised who they turn out to be.
The quiet guy or girl we never noticed but who remembers us.
And when we hear about their life,
we think WOW this person is FOR REAL and I never appreciated them.
Yes, high school reunions are where the survivors congregate
and actually get to know each other at a whole new level of closeness.
See if you can get to one of your class reunions,
or call up some old friends and put together a small one yourself.
There are golden friends in there, waiting for you to find them!
A song to inspire your search
This post would not be complete without the Beatles song that goes:
“Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? When I’m 64”
The Beatles – When I’m Sixty Four
QUESTION:
What is the most important quality you want in your lifelong friends?
Write and tell me!
Dr. Hall