More Friends

I began last week's post with the comment, 'I've been reflecting today on friendship'.  So today I have to add 'still'.  I'm still thinking about friends and my relationship to them.  In my solitary life, most of my personal communication is by text messages, e-mail or social media: facebook or occasionally twitter.  For the phone actually to ring is something of a rarity. This week it's been unusually busy.

Early in the week I had a Christmas card from a lady who is no blood relation to me, who had written a message inside - as people often do - opposite the greeting.  This one read, "I'm really struggling with this time of year.  Tony passed away suddenly on Easter Monday."  I glanced again to the opposite side; she had put just her own name, without the usual '... and Tony'.  I've only ever communicated with her, never her husband, and only by post.  It was her husband, though, who was my relative.  We were at opposite ends of two large generations.  His great-great-grandmother was my grandfather's eldest sister.  It seemed quite impossible until I remembered that my father was the youngest son of a family of twelve, and my grandfather was the youngest son of a family of ten.

I was saddened by her news and began to write a letter to express this.  The longer I struggled with my words, the worse it got.  I broke off for a meal and, before returning to it, discovered that I had a note of her phone no. The letter was abandoned and I rang her; there was no reply, so I left a brief message and after an hour or so she rang back.  Eight months have passed, but she was still clearly devastated by her loss.  She was pleased that I'd called and, although we'd never spoken before, it was as if we were old friends, and we chatted for quite a while ... that is, she chatted and I listened, making appropriate noises when necessary.

A couple of nights later, completely out of the blue, the phone rang again. The caller this time was a lady whom I knew from my native Norfolk, a former bell-ringer, whose husband died around the same time as Tony, but in this case I had learned of his death almost immediately and had responded at the time.  His life had been linked to my own in many different ways down the years, beginning when I was still at primary school, so I felt I knew him very well.  Instead of the usual bland expressions of condolence, I had written a 650-word tribute to someone whom I described as a 'genial, determined and loyal man, a true gentleman.'  I was astonished at the response this drew from his widow.  She phoned me to express her immediate gratitude while I was on holiday in Scotland, and I was the one who choked up.

This week's call began with those same thanks, and repeated a pledge she had made then to use my words in a public tribute to her late husband. Being now in her mid-eighties, I forgive her for having forgotten that I had already given my approval to the idea, but she has yet to get round to it, and it's one of a number of things that have been 'shunted' down the calendar since his death.  Nevertheless, she sounded very positive, and something of a contrast to the younger woman I had listened to earlier.

Like the two women I wrote about last week, these two are so different, and yet so alike.  One I spoke to this week for the first time; the other I've known for nearly 50 years.  One who has got to know me through the annual exchange of Christmas cards and by reading the newsletters enclosed; the other who has seen my progression from teenager via husband and father to divorced status, and followed news of my life's path into retirement.

I ask, as I did last week, how close does someone have to be in order truly to be a friend.  I'm not sure this comparison sheds any more light on that than last week's rambling narrative did.  One thing I have learned, however, with all four of these ladies, in different ways.  It's important to be willing and available when there's a need, whether it's foreseen or not.  I suppose the case of unforeseen need is actually more important, because that's when availability is less guaranteed.

No conclusions here, just as there were none last week, and I suspect there never will be.  There is just a warm feeling to have friends, both to turn to in one's own need, and to be there for in theirs.

With only a week to go before Christmas, I promise that next week's post will not be so deep as these two.