Celebrating Friendship


A couple of months ago, I think August, was the month of friendship. "O" magazine had the same month issue dedicated to friendship not really whether Oprah is gay with Gale (although it was discussed in that issue) …I also think that the Oprah/Gale relationship being gay or not has been given a big overage much more than it deserves if you ask me and they have explained that they are just good friends and anyone who has a best friend or a very close best friend will agree with them and truly attest that what they share is rich and real. It is not as if I subscribe to the O magazine, I am sick of seeing Oprah on the cover month-in-month-out, year-in-year-out so I do not bother with the magazine but if I stumble on a copy, I am sure to flip through it and in this particular instance I had the opportunity to ride in a colleague’s car and she buys O magazine religiously and I read the bits on friendship and there were lots of lovely things about friendship and different people had stuff to say.

This morning while on the treadmill I was thinking of my friends (I have very few actually and I can count them on my fingers and will finish and yet have not completed the five fingers) but I thought, I’d also ‘celebrate them’…female and male alike and it does not matter whether it is or not the officially designated month of friendship. I think that we can all decide which week, day or month that we want to celebrate our friends and that is what really matters … that we have time to tell our friends how much they mean to us. One of the greatest gifts of life in addition to children is friends and I mean true friends. I am not going to bore you all with all the good things that we often hear or read about friendship but my life has been enriched and blessed beyond words by friends. Some have been with me all the way, some have stopped along the journey of life, some made lasting positive and some lasting negative impressions on me but in all they have brought balance and hope to my life and I am eternally grateful to all my friends.

However, in thinking about my friends whom I will be directing to this site once I have posted this piece I though about the different ways that they have impacted my life. They have made me laugh when laughter was so far away and life’s challenges and trials had drained every smile and laughter from my soul and they have also made me cry when they have gone through rough patches or did not understand me and I hurt them in the process. I have also cried when I let them down unknowingly. I hear people talk of friends and how they used to be friends with someone and now they are no longer friends and the first thing I think of is that, “no way it got the wrong label”. I think that we used the term for all sorts of relationships and acquaintances but true friendship transcend time and distance. There is a connection that is not sustained by physical means (email, telephone, letters whatever). It is liberating and have not conditions or restrictions.

To all my friends, here is a piece I wrote sometime this year (not sure which month but it was not the friendship month):

“My life tells the story of friends.
I have been blessed by friends; I have been built up by friends
I have been picked up by friends; I have been helped countless times by friends

My friends have believe when fears and doubt engulfed me
My friends have held my hands and carried me on their shoulder when my legs could not move and the bones seem crushed

Times when I thought I cannot take one more step,
Times when I thought, it is all over and I am overwhelmed by own depravity and darkness seem to cover me; my friends have come through for me.

My friends have pointed to the breaking of day; the remote rays of sunlight when all I could see were darkness and hopelessness
I have received great gifts from God and truly have a blessed and rich life all because of the friends He has given me.

If I never live to thank all my friends, I hope they realize in the inner most parts of their soul that I love them and appreciate all they have done and been to me”.

I love you all and you know yourselves. Thank you for all that you have been and are and will be.