Friends

Friends

It's fascinating to do an inventory check on friends or what we generically call friends. If you look over your Facebook account list of friends you may find people on it that you hardly know or may not know at all. If you go to church and visit before and after a service you'll find friends there as well, but they are in a sort of category, at least some of them, even if you are the minister. Then, there's work, now that's a horse of another color isn't it. There are some folks there that wouldn't make the cut anywhere but at work. How about the local watering hole? Now there's a place you can find quite a variation of "friends". Fair weather, acquaintance, drinking buddies, business associates, clients, to mention a few but I'll let you fill in the gaps. Now, if you are divorced then, you get some of the friends and others move entirely to the other camp. Even if you are in a respectable and working relationship with the x, there are conditions that require special handling. The point of all this is: a good friend is hard to find and even harder to keep. So, if you have a friend who has hung in there with you through thick and thin, managed to walk the tight rope between you and the x, and still manages to have a laugh with you now and then, make sure you thank them. There are lots of ways to do that. I like the old cliche, "If you want to have a friend, be one." I will leave it to you to figure out what that means to you, my friend.

P.S. A special note to lifelong friends: You belong in a category all to yourself, as do spouses  that are the only one and buddies from the armed forces. You are just the best there is, and that's the truth.

Herb Ratliff, November 11, 2011, All Rights Reserved