"Reach Out and Touch"

Do you ever wonder if you are being the best person you could be? I do. I wonder it a lot. I wonder if I am being the kind of friend I should be to all the people who have given me their friendship and have received mine in return. Being a friend is an important thing, and it shouldn't be taken lightly.

Before I married I had tons of friends. I was actively involved in their lives. Their troubles were my troubles and their joys my joys. I was on the phone with them constantly or was with them in person. It was not unusual for me to sit up until the wee hours of the morning talking with one or more of them, and solving their problems.

During that time, my life was my friends. I was single so there was no problem in being available for talks and consultations 24/7. Then I got married and all that had to change. I still kept my friends but I was no longer available to them as I had been. And soon a lot of them drifted away.

Over the years my wife and I have made friends who belong to both of us. That makes it easier. Couple friends are easier to deal with than individual friends. Plus they don't require the kind of attention that individual friends do. Still you do have to cultivate and nurture friendships of any type and that is where I feel I fall down on the job.

I have friends, good friends, that I don't see for weeks at a time. Time just passes and life gets in the way. I am caught up in my work, my family, my grandkids, the latest movies, the new books, and all the rest of the minutiae of my life. And then it dawns on me that I haven't seen so and so in ages. 

This is especially true of the friends that don't live in the town where I do. To communicate with them I have to pick up the phone and call, and for some reason that is a problem. There are excuses for this of course, like they may be busy or they may have already gone to bed. You can think of a thousand reasons not to dial that number.

I have lived long enough now that I have lost some of my friends to death. One of my best friends has been dead many years now and I still miss him. I wish I could call him or visit with him, or hear from him in some way. In my heart I know I wasn't the friend to him I should have been and I have great guilt about it.

Being a friend takes so little effort and it gives such great benefits. On this journey through life we are lucky if people extend the hand of friendship to us. When they do we should respond with the best efforts we can muster. 

Life can be a lonely road so make sure you don't let someone trod it alone. Reach out and touch them with a word, or a deed, or a smile. I am going to be a better friend. I am going to work on it. How about you?

 

 

 

 

 

©2004 Jackie K. Cooper

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