WAITING PATIENTLY

 Watching friends come together after 50 years I remember thinking…how cool!  How they all met as strangers in their neighborhoods or school.

And I thought about how they all first met…was it awkward…tentative…or sweet?  (Which, when you stop to think about it, is the way most strangers meet).

I imagine, from this uncertain beginning, a relationship extends when strangers find they have a lot in common…when strangers become friends.

A friendship strengthened by their laughter…by sharing hopes and dreams…by holding on to one another as they ride through life’s extremes.

But life is unpredictable…how often does it surprise…astound…amaze…and after high school many of these friends departed…they went their separate ways.

I imagine they parted amid some sadness…yet happy with what they achieved…for they were able to give the gift of friendship…and the gift of friendship they received.

Then years slip by (perhaps 50) until they meet again…this meeting more familiar…more tenderhearted…it’s as if no time was lost between them…as if they never parted.

And I felt privileged to be observing one of life’s wonders…shared only among old friends…how friendship has no time limit…how its memory never ends.

How true friendships are never over…how true friends never say goodbye…how, even after 50 years, true friendships never die.

Yes…it’s a secret old friends understand that new friends will, one day, learn:

how friendship dwells within the heart…

waiting patiently to return.