I have mad love for all of my friends. When they hurt, I feel their pain. When they cry, I feel their sadness. When they laugh, I generally have said or done something to be their comic relief. There are good times and bad times and right now, bad times have hit a lot of them.
A friend that has been married for 30 years who's last son just graduated on Thursday, was kindly asked for a divorce Monday. How nice. This is the exact reason why I am getting a divorce now. I don't want to waste 30 years of my life going through the motions with someone, being their roommate and having nothing with them when our children leave home. Its just not worth it. Now she is in her late 40's and having to start the dating game all over again.
Another friend sent me a message that she had lost her baby. Of all the women I know that want to be a mother, this woman has waited and waited and deserved this wonderful opportunity. She is an exceptional person. Now not only is she recovering from her loss, she goes to a Car Show on her birthday and her husband and step children are to meet her there and they never show up. She comes home to find out that they have moved out over the weekend and no one said a word. What a lovely birthday present. She is better off, but by far this is a very tough, hurtful situation.
Today, I went to a funeral for one of my oldest, dearest friends father. He had went to the emergency room Friday and they wanted to keep him, but he refused since he had too much work to do at home and went home and died in the night. That was that. Truly this would be the way to go if you think about it. No suffering, no ongoing sickness or disease where you are in complete misery, no great pain. He just fell asleep and never awoke again. Seeing her today meant a lot to both of us. I have so much love, respect and admiration for her as a person. When I was 17, she asked me to come to work for her. Seeing the potential in me, she sent me to management school. When I turned 18, I was given my own resturant to manage. No prior experience, no college, just one person who believed in me and wanted me to have opportunities that they never did. She always believed in me and continued to believe in me when I decided that the resturant business was not for me, when I decided to try something new, when I got pregnant with my first and second child, when I was devastated with the results of the pregnancy test showing I had made it to round 3, when my grandfather died of cancer, when I had my car wreck and lost someone I loved the most, when I was upset over finding out about the first infidelity, etc.. There have been so many moments in my life where she has just been there. We may not talk every day or see each other frequently, but when we do its as if no time has passed at all. I had to be there for her today. It was my turn to be there for her. Not that I haven't been there for her. I held her hand when her first baby was stillborn, again when the doctors told her there was no hope for her second child and that she needed to have an abortion as the baby would not live past the age of 3 only for her to be strong and persevere and that baby is now 18 years old and a beautiful healthy girl, through the loss of her grandmother, the loss of her home, etc...
Friends are friends through good and bad. They don't judge or put you off and somehow, some way they find themselves back to you at just the right moment. They are there for you when you need to laugh, need to cry or just need to beat the living shit out of someone. They understand when you say, "When I see him eat, sleep or breath in and out, I just want to take a baseball bat and make it all go away." Then you both can laugh about it later. Real Friends leave the door open knowing that you will be walking in and out periodically for the rest of your lifes.
I have mad love for you friends!!
