Friendship

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”

I attended a costume dinner party last week with a group of dear friends. We call ourselves the Ya-Ya’s (borrowed from the wonderful movie “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”), and it’s a perfectly fitting name because it's a truly divine sisterhood.

For me, the Ya-Ya’s are divine in part because we celebrate all the time, birthdays, big events in our lives, our similarities, our differences, and for no reason in particular. I just looked again at the pictures from last week’s dinner party, which were posted on facebook, and they made me laugh and feel silly all over again. Our times together are a celebration of being female, of middle-age challenges, lessons learned and dreams realized, and of our interconnectedness with each other and in our own divine lives.

I have heard it said that it takes a long time to grow an old friend. I’ve known one of those ladies 20 years, and some others almost as long. It takes that kind of time to create relationships that honor the best and worst in each other. In more ways than I could ever list or even remember, my friends have seen through my scared, stuck times, and have sung for me the song in my heart when I needed it most. I like to think I have sung their songs to them also, when they’ve forgotten.

Kahil Gibran said that friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. Creating and maintaining relationships is not always easy, but nothing good in life is created without our conscious attention to it. We need to remember to find time for and nurture the things that are most important.

So here’s to you, dear Ya-Ya’s. You are treasures.

May you always get by, like John Lennon, with a little help from your friends. And may this tool be a blessing. . .