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Untitled, by Diana Maus, http://mosaicmoods.wordpress.com/

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Thru Thick and Thin


 

My friend, Dwight, just emailed a quote from Henry David Thoreau that had something to tell me:

The seeds of the summer are getting dry & falling from a thousand nodding heads. If I did not know you through thick & thin how should I know you at all

 
I might have passed this by unnoticed yesterday, but, today, it teases my mind. This is the nature of Higher Laws; we see things when we are meant to see them. Friendship is that very human interaction which we applaud but don’t often look at closely. How well can I know you, if I don’t know you in good times and hard times? How well can I know you if I do not welcome your faults as well as your talents? How well do I know you if I am content to pass you by with a Cherrio, have a good day? How well will I know you if I stand at my window watching trouble visit you, my neighbor, and do nothing?


Today was a good day for me and my friends in our little knitting group at Golden Pond Retirement Village in Golden, Colorado. We have been meeting long enough now, that even our silences are rich with thought. I know that my friends here cherish this time each Friday; we chat and share and use the knitting as our excuse to be together.


There are usually about six of us around the table, and the more we express what we are thinking, the closer we feel. Most are a bit older than I, and only one is still with her husband. I have to tell you, these are wise older women; wise enough to know that they do not want to live with their children, thank you, but thoughtful enough to realize that the step they took to sell their homes, dispose of most of their belongings and move to Golden Pond was probably the most profound change they had ever undergone.

One said, “You give up your car, your privacy, your home—almost everything!” And, the question is, what can make the day seem bright when all that is gone? “Our children have a right to their own lives, and they want me to be happy, and…and what?” Before we left we had acknowledged the fact that late in life friends are a more important part of our lives than ever before. P said, “I’ve lost two friends since I moved here 18 months ago,” and it was clear that the thought saddened her. V, the chipper one from New Mexico added, “Yes, I moved here to be with my son’s family, and look what happened—he was transferred to California. I can’t afford to make another major move.”

Rather than feeling abandoned, V now has the friends she is making at a very late time in her life.

I remember a poem I learned as a child: “Hold fast to friends, we lightly say, but as they pass along the way, fill up the gap with newer friends, til time the adjective amends.”


Yes, for my friends at Golden Pond friendship is a very important commodity—through thick and thin.


1 comment:

Sue said...

Testing. There is some problem adding comments.