The friendship that can cease has never been real.#1 Son's best friend used to live next door, back when we lived in Atlanta. Since we're visiting, he was adamant that he look Kevin up.- St. Jerome
While I didn't say anything, I was nervous about the reunion. We've been gone 8 years, and that's a lot when you were only 10 when you moved away. In the back of my mind was the fear that they would have grown on very different paths, and that the drive back home would be a thousand miles of disappointment.
It sure was nice to see them drop back into the friendship, seemingly as if it were only a long summer vacation that had kept them apart.
As a parent, you want to protect your children. Sometimes this means that you have to watch them get hurt, because that' s how they grow. Sometimes - if you're lucky - that feared life lesson passes them by, and they get a different lesson.
The language of friendship is not words, but meanings.- Henry David Thoreau
It's different now, at least from what I've seen. When I was a kid if someone moved away at first there were letters and the occasional phone call. Then the letters dropped off and the phone calls (long distance was expensive) ceased. Then, the letters stopped and the friend became someone you used to know.
ReplyDeleteThat's all different now. Several years ago, my daughter's best friend moved to Michigan. Via email, instant messaging, and cheap long distance, they stayed in touch. Add to that relatively cheap air fares, so they could visit each other once or twice a year. Add to that cheap cell phone rates and texting, and they are in virtual contact all the time. Oh, and then there's Face Book.
A dozen or more years later and they're still very close.
It's really good to have a friend or two like that.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend (second only to my wife) has been in my life since the second grade.
There's been periods of up to a couple of years when we didn't talk, write or communicate in any way, but as soon as we re-connected, it's like the gap never occurred.
We live about 4 states from each other now, but if I needed him, I could call right now and he'd be here tomorrow...and I'd do the same for him.
Those are the kinds of friendships that really mean something in your life. I hope your son cultivates and maintains his. The dividends can be unlimited.
I think if you're 7 and have to move away it's different - maybe not. My best friend sent me Creepy-Crawlies in the mail and wondered why I didn't write back. I wondered why my friend never wrote at all.
ReplyDeleteBack in '65 the Soviet-friendly Indian Gubb'mint intercepted them. Maybe the U.S. was conducting some kind of Secret Giant Rubber-Nuclear Insect Program - but the giant bugs in India would have beaten ours handily even with radiation treatment. Or maybe it was just the time-honored and traditional: customs-house theft as usual.
We never really got back together and I never quite had a best-friend again.