Redefining that thin thread that holds us all together
- Michelle Wood: SWCD
- October 25, 2009
- 876
Others bottle caps.
Still others coins or Civil War artifacts or recipes or shrunken heads or first-edition books.
Me?
I collect friends.
And I have a Good Shepherd complex when it comes to losing them.
Have you ever gotten an unexpected phone call from someone you hadn’t heard from in decades?
Or an e-mail from a person that you’d absolutely given up on ever hearing from again?
Or a birthday card from a long-lost acquaintance you’d relegated to the trash heap of history?
If so, it was probably from a person like me.
There is no rational explanation for this kind of perseverance, no easy way to defend the lengths to which I might go to make sure that someone who meant something to me days or months or years or decades before would know that I’m still interested in maintaining contact.
I think I know what you’re thinking.
Time passes for a reason.
Life goes on.
And I get that.
It’s not that I’m a night stalker or something or that I’m trying to push my way into lives that have evolved into something far beyond my comprehension.
It’s just that I care.
Perhaps that makes sense to you. It’s all about connection, that life that used to matter, one that’s fallen into disrepair due to lack of due diligence. It’s kind of like caring for Norfolk Pine, a bare scrub of a plant that was given to you by a sibling, something you refused to let perish.
And that was 10 years ago.
“Maybe,” my wife in waiting said, back on that cold February day when my sister gave it to me, “it might be better to just let it, well ... .”
“You mean die,” I said. “Right?”
“Well,” she said, “it is kind of scrawny. You have to admit that.”
She was correct.
The thing looked like an offspring of the pathetic little tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas, the one that buckled and bent under the weight of a single ornament.
And yet.
And yet.
I saw something in it, something beyond potential, something familial.
My sister had given it to me and I couldn’t see letting her down. So I tended it, I watered it, I made sure it always had the right light and, when it came time to move down here to sunny Carolina, I placed it in my 1991 Honda to ensure that I could keep an eye on it. There it rested, getting sufficient warmth and attention, in the well of the passenger-side seat.
And then, yesterday, my wife said, “I think it’s time we got a bigger planter for your Norfolk Pine.”
Because it’s grown to nearly five feet tall.
That’s the best analogy I can come up with for the nurturing of friendships: There’s something extra-worldly about managing to maintain them. Even when you think they’re gone and done, there’s a hopeful blossom or a bit of new growth that’s reluctant to relinquish its tenuous grip on life.
Which is why I call my friends and make sure that they know that I’m thinking about them. It’s like watering a plant: The more attention you pay, the better the reward.
All I want is to make sure that someone, who may not know it that afternoon or that night, is very important to me.
I don’t have the words to describe the emotions I feel when someone returns that favor.
It’s beyond my ability and I like to think I’m pretty facile with my language skills. When someone takes it into his or her mind to take the time to just say hello, again, well, it makes my day, my week, my month.
Times are hard.
We all know that and most of us are living proof of that.
But we’re hanging in there.
We’re making a difference.
We’re checking up on friends and family.
We’re confident that better days lie ahead.
It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that these are the worst of the best times, when a hand extended in friendship can make the difference between a night spent restlessly and one warm and assured in the land of a better tomorrow.
So, when a friend calls, don’t worry so much about making conversation. Focus, instead, on the realization that you’ve been given a gift.
And what’s the best way to pay back that kind of debt?
That’s right.
Get in touch with someone else who might be just as happy to hear from you.
I know it’s kind of corny, but the world is filled with precisely that kind of person.
There.
I feel so much better.
Mike Dewey can be e-mailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560.