Good friends…like shoes and jeans and plaid shirts…The longer you keep them, the more comfortable they are, the more they grow on you, and even when they are near to the end of their run…you reserve them for weekends, gardening, and over time you mend them, mix them with new ones, and if you’re lucky…they can comfort your kids and friends or family…long after you’re gone…
A good friend is like a dusty piano…even when a piano sits unused and silent, it still has the potential to bring music to your heart and put a song in the air and accompany you…
A good friend is like concrete. A foundation for a life or a dwelling is likely to endure and stand up to weather and adversity much better and much longer than a relationship without substance, or a house built on plain earth that sits susceptible to the elements, not conducive of longevity. Over time, true friendships and concrete foundations are likely to solidify and become sturdier through the years and over decades.
A great friend is like a mighty Douglas fir tree. One can shelter you from sleet and storms…give you material to build a hospitable spiritual or literal abode. And even after the tree or friend has been felled and called back to the life giving earth…the simple memory or remains is kindling and fuel for warmth through fond recollections, or the flames there in your hearth. Whether metaphoric or in your abode…A great fir or great friend never stops giving, even when life has dwindled.
A good friend is a smattering of special songs that sustain and remain and blossom in your heart…whether it’s midnight and moonlight or the advent of a new day at dawn. When the melody lifts you sweetly as the day makes its start. A friend in your soul will accompany you come what may…
A good friend stays with you, prays with you, and will go the distance for you. And they will know by the look in your eye and a subtle hint in your tone that in fact is what they need do…
And a true friend has a long memory to recall the glory, and a short memory to shed the shames…and has a place inside that is safe harbor…but even in a place of refuge, they will tell you what you need to hear, rather than what you wish uttered…
And true friends lean against each other and never let the world know, that if either should shift, the other would fall…and so there is strength even when there is none…
A friend is a gift from God, sent to watch over the other, share in the laughter and sooth the brewing storm. And a friend won’t scoff and scold if you’ve not enough sense to come in from the rain, but will join you because you’ve the strength to endure foul weather while tending to those wandered lambs lost in the elements…and help you guide them to kinder times and warmer surroundings and brighter days.
A friend usually understands, but even when they can’t, they listen and linger for another cup or two…and a friend always watches you till you’ve gone from sight…and then misses you and prays for safe passage and a gentle wind at your back till you return.
And a friend forgives others for having grown old, for needing help to scale the porch or time to just sit and be glad for as many yesterdays…when there are a finite number of tomorrows left to share. And a friend holds your heart in their hands…and it is safe there, as are your secrets and frailties…and then…a friend rescues you, so you can rescue them right back…and the circle though unbroken…is rarely a proper round one, but a precious wandering journey none the less…and a friend seldom looks at the clock when the phone rings, because regardless of the hour, a friend is a friend, is a friend. Amen
Love, Matthew Lyle…son of Gordon and Vimy, which pretty much explains it all.
Matthew Lyle Landsman 