I was writing a birthday card to my oldest friend today. How old of a friendship, you might ask?
65 years of friendship.
I reviewed our history in the card. I always use blank cards. Unless they're my own. My own have a poem at the back, but the insides are white and inviting.
Our baby years. Our national school years. Our high school/teenage years. Our performing years. Our ugly first jobs. Our incredible party years. Our travelling years. Our weddings. Our babies. Their weddings and partnerships. Our grandparent years. It's neat this grandparent stuff. Her granddaughter sends me a painting from Australia. My granddaughter stays with her in Dublin for a few days this past month.
I can overlook these joys of long term devotion and loyalty if I'm not careful.
I outlined them all in my card to her.
We love reminding each other of our mothers. They each died when we were far too young to let them go. We adored each other's mothers. First thing she did when she had her first daughter was to go visit my mum. I was emigrated by then. My mother wrote me of it. How it brought me closer to her on a bad day (she was not doing too well with her cancer at the time).
Her mother would spoil me. Bring me breakfast in bed when I stayed there as my own home was far too busy for such indulgences being packed with siblings. My friend was an only child. I nearly had to be pried out of her house with a crowbar when I stayed.
We'd exchange clothes all the time, we even traded boyfriends. We bolstered each other through thick and thin. I don't think we ever had an angry word to say to each other. And we were never jealous of each other. Our talents and personalities are quite, quite different.
I doubt there are any secrets we withhold, I know I don't with her.
And we always write the language of the heart to each other in our daily emails.
And when we sit down with each other in Dublin or Cork, the years melt away and we just pick up the threads of conversation as if we'd met for breakfast that morning.
Everyone should be so lucky.
You are blessed to have a friend like that. A real Anam Cara!
ReplyDeleteGM:
ReplyDeleteAnd don't I know it!
XO
WWW
Yeats put it nicely (if you'll excuse the anachronistic sexism):
ReplyDelete"Think where man's glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends."
The picture took me back to my high school days, the hairdos are very 1962.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who I refer to in my blog as the cook down the street...I met him in 1975, and we've somehow managed to live in the same places most of the years since. People complain we talk in shorthand, complete each other's sentences, etc.
I'd like to think that if I go first, my last words to him will be "Been a helluva party, David."
That's a wonderful friendship. Such close friendships are rare, especially those without any secrets. Most of us hold things back for one reason or another.
ReplyDeleteYou two are indeed fortunate to have remained friends all these years. My long-time friend and I came to a parting of the ways 33 years ago and I've lately been thinking about that event. Wonder what we would be like have we remained friends. We went back to before kindergarten. Well, she married a man I did not like.
ReplyDeleteVery Nice post...............
ReplyDeleteSweet....just what I needed this morning
ReplyDeleteLucky, lucky you, both of you.
ReplyDeleteThere's something so very solid and freeing about a long time friendship, especially a warts and all one.
ReplyDeleteHaving one is not something everyone can claim. Mine goes back 65 years and we haven't seen one another for 60 of those. We keep promising to meet before either of us falls off our perch.....one day.
For the first time ever, my oldest friend rang me up on my last birthday to greet me because his daughter and grandson told him to having come to know about the day from the facebook. He is not one for such formalities and it was a pleasant surprise to me. I always greet him and his wife on their birthdays and he was feeling very pleased with himself for doing it for the first time ever as was I,
ReplyDeleteI am lucky to have him and his entire family in my life.
Stan:
ReplyDeleteLove me some Yeats, thanks for that!
XO
WWW
SFM:
ReplyDeleteYes, those 'dos! Oh the work involved, she gave up as you can see, I hung on until I read somewhere (no Snopes in those days!) that spiders liked to nest in those things!
Nice you have a BFF too, I like your last words!
XO
WWW
Nick:
ReplyDeleteI think once you befriend as children there are no such things as secrets :)
XO
WWW
dkz:
ReplyDeleteMaybe she's left him? do you hear any news of her?
I was with my friend the night her future husband came to our theatre company for an audition!
Co-incidentally he was friends also with my ex-husband.
XO
WWW
Anon:
ReplyDeleteThanks!
XO
WWW
John:
ReplyDeleteI unSweded you for a moment there, did I?
XO
WWW
Friko:
ReplyDeleteYes very. I need to remind myself of such things in the dark days.
XO
WWW
Pamela:
ReplyDeleteYou're obviously in contact is that frequent?
One of these days, it would be lovely for you.
I know I love being with my friend.
XO
WWW
Ramana:
ReplyDeleteI love when old friends can surprise us like this :)
XO
WWW
You're not just lucky: you have obviously valued this friendship and let your friend know how you valued her. You've been a good friend.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's a mutual thing Linda, we've always admired each other, for instance when she was 60 she took on the 15 year olds at an Irish dancing feis and beat them. Bowled me over. She's also a champion bridge player (plays for Ireland).
ReplyDeleteMy interests are quite different, though we both read voraciously.
XO
WWW
Yes, we're in contact daily and play Scrabble online together - real needle matches. Good fun, and emails keep us abreast of things going on in our lives.
ReplyDeleteYou are so lucky to have such a friendship. My oldest friend means a lot to me,but our lives been very different. Still,when we manage to get together it's as if we never parted!
ReplyDeleteLovely Pam, I love these touchstones in our lives.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Isn't it amazing Hattie, good friends thrive on their mutual watering the garden of the connection.
ReplyDeleteI've had a few that won't invest in that simple little act and it has been painful letting them go but one-sided friendship is too large a load to carry.
XO
WWW
How very wonderful. The only childhood friend I still have is my 'second mother'. I don't have anyone of my own age.
ReplyDeleteSo pleased for you both.
This is a special tribute to your friendship ~ I hope she read this post. What's the quote? The only way to have a friend is to be one. It takes two and you are obviously glad to have each other.
ReplyDeleteAnd we always write the language of the heart to each other in our daily emails.
ReplyDeleteWhat lovely words, you are blessed to have such a friend and she you.
Laura:
ReplyDeleteLucky you having a second mother. I took on a few after my mother died but they are, alas, now gone too!
XO
WWW
Sharon:
ReplyDeleteshe is much more dedicated than I am. If I overlook responding on any day she just emails again as if I had written :)
XO
WWW
Cait:
ReplyDeleteThank you for *your* words.
Unusual, I think that we soldier on through thick and thin.
XO
WWW
What wonderful luck that the two of you were placed in each tother's lives. That sort of friendship is a rare treasure.
ReplyDeleteSAW:
ReplyDeleteAs I age, I value it more and more.
XO
WWW