Friends

Candace Bergen with the help of the Muppets couldn't have sung it better.

You've Got To Have Friends.

And today as I traveled with my youngest daughter Cosette to her best friend's graduation party in Lewiston, I was reminded over and over again.

Coco and Sidnee met in grade school, and became very close friends.  After fifth grade, Sidnee moved to Clarkston, Washington.  But Coco and Sidnee remained close all these years.

Sidnee came to Coco's graduation last weekend.

And this weekend, Coco will attend Sidnee's graduation from Clarkston High School.

I got a little emotional as I watched Sidnee's slide show at her graduation party tonight seeing photos of her and Coco, and other parts of Sidnee's life.  It is special to have close friend like Coco has with Sidnee, and the fact they have kept their friendship through miles of separation.

Since I was driving Coco down to Lewiston and coming right back the same night, I asked one of my oldest and dearest friends Tina to accompany me on the trip to help keep me awake.  Because I knew we would be able to have lots of things to talk to help keep me awake.

On the say to Lewiston, I dropped Tina off at her sister's house in Genesee.  I would come back later to pick her up.

Coco and I found our way to the party in downtown Lewiston, and enjoyed visiting with Sidnee, seeing her family, and it was so fun seeing Coco and Sidnee together once again.

It was a beautiful evening, and on the way home I stopped at the top of the Lewiston Hill and took a picture of Lewiston and Clarkston, and the Snake and Clearwater Rivers. 

The town of Lewiston always holds a special place in my heart, because it is where my mom and dad met, and fell in love.  It was while they were students at Lewiston Normal School, now known as Lewis and Clark State College.

After about an hour and a half, I left the festivities and went back to Genessee to pick up Tina.  Before I went to her sister's home out on the farm, I stopped to take a shot of the beautiful church Jenny and her family attend that is right down the street from her house.  I wish I would have had my good camera when I took these photos.  I plan to return some day to visit the church.

I arrived at Jenny's house, and stayed and visited with the two "Curry girls" and Jenny's youngest daughter.  We had a wonderful time enjoying the beautiful evening on a small farm in the Genesee Valley.  And, of course, the Palouse area around Moscow, Genesee and Lewiston is so beautiful this time of year.

Well, it was about 10 p.m. when we finally hit the road.  And Tina did a marvelous job of keeping me away all the way to CDA.  I dropped her off, then I made it hope by about 1 a.m.

We have all kinds of friends in our lives.  I have had a conversation with another friend many times about having friends in your life who have known you all your life.  The beauty of these friends, is, they have known you forever, there is nothing you can do or say that will make them reject you.  Because they KNOW you.  They understand you.

I just finished a really good book by Anna Quindlen titled "Still Life With Bread Crumbs", and there is a passage in the book that I just love:

It was funny, what friendship meant in Rebecca's world.  It mainly meant lunch, twice a year, and the occasional dinner party, except for Dorothea, who was an old school friend, a genuine friend.  Rebecca had realized, ruefully, that she should have made more friends in school; they seemed to be the only ones women really talked honestly because the shared history meant fewer lies were available to them.  With the others shared meals had become substitutes for intimacy, but not the kind of substitute that allowed for dark nights of the soul, calls at 1:00 a.m., tears and drinking and despair in pajamas.  How many times had she heard women in New York---maybe women everywhere, for all she knew---speak lyrically of how they wouldn't see friends for months, perhaps even years, and then it was as though they had never been apart.  "Picked up where we left off" was the common phrase.  It was supposed to signal some magical communion, but if you looked it right in the eye, it came down to this:  the kinds of people they considered friends they might not even actually see for a long long time.

 

This has been true over and over again in my life.  I have many friends who, because of the times in our lives, or the geography of  where we are located, couldn't see one another.  But then we have a chance to connect, if only for an evening, and it is true.  Me have the "magical communion" and we have been able to "pick up where we left off". 

 

I share this magical communion with friends I grew up with here in Kellogg.  I share this magical communion with college friends from the University of Idaho.  I share this magical communion with friends from Glendive, Montana, and Meridian, Idaho, the two other places I have lived in my life. 

 

In a couple of weeks, I have a friend from Meridian coming.  I only see her a couple times a year.  We are going to have a "retreat" together to help her work on some things in her creative life.  But I have a magical communion with her.  We always pick up right where we left off. 

 

Yes, you got to have friends.  Friendship makes life much more rich and rewarding.

 

You gotta, gotta, gotta have friends...................................