Friendship

I opened my door and she stood smiling in front of me.  I had the eerie feeling that I knew her from before -- I mean from another lifetime.  We became friends right away. Her blonde hair was curly then, permed like a little lamb, one of my favorite animals. 

We visited so often over a cup of tea and talked for hours.  I loved to go to her house because I had to cross a great deal of open fields and nurseries that refreshed my mind and soul.  She was the one who announced the change of seasons to me.  “There is a scent of Fall in the air,” she would say.  I though it was a great feat of perception for someone who lived in Miami where one barely senses the change of the seasons, unlike other parts of the country.

We traveled together. Went to Texas together, to Haiti together. We toured Florida for the Inner Peace movement and we went to be interviewed together to appear in radio shows.  Our friendship was complete then as it is still now.

When my mother died one evening after I traveled to Haiti, I was so awfully stricken, taking care of all there was to do after her death.  It was not until midnight that she called me from Miami and asked in a gentle voice “Did you remember to cry?”  Her words gave permission to let the tears flow and grieve as I should.

Back to Miami on a bench park in front of a lake, we talked about our most intimate thoughts; sex, life and about what we wanted out of living.  We walked out of there a bit elated; a weight was taken out of our chest.  We could breathe again.  Our life was difficult then, we both considered possible divorces and indeed, she accompanied me to see the judge to get the final word on a divorce that was sad after a long marriage and she got divorced as well.

Life separated us.  She went to live in Alaska and I moved to Colorado.  We both remarried.  Computers or phones linked us so we could communicate as before but with much more acquired wisdom and always the yearning to spend an afternoon over a cup of tea.

When I got sick, she came from California to be with me.
Her presence was a healing balm.  So many years of togetherness have joined our spirits and it seems like we are more sisters than just friends.  I have my real sister that I love but I will write about her later.

She was always one of these bright lights sent by the universe and I knew she loved me as I loved her.  She also adopted my sister as hers, my daughter as hers and she was always present, ready to add her input if I needed it.

Friendship is sometime ephemeral like the passing of a comet in the sky of our lives.  People seem to enter our days for a certain duration and once this time is passed they leave us to move to what they need at this moment of their lives.  Some rare ones are planted like a tree who stand firmly in our lives and accompany us through our joys and our sorrows and the little inconsequential things that makes us laugh.

For me a true friend is rather like a rare hot house bloom.  Someone to be nurtured and kept in my memory as a fine companion that life has provided to smooth and share the current of events and enchant our dreams.  

I call her my soul sister and there is a laugh in her eyes.





copyright 2010 Micheline Brierre