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Community Corner

The Journey of Friendship

We show our kids the meaning of friendship and hope they learn from our experiences.

Friendships are a journey. We become intensely aware of their significance and worth as we get older.  Watching my kids this past weekend and relishing in their happy reunions with friends from high school and college was an amazing thing to see.  I know that it wasn’t always an easy path and getting to this stage in their lives took a lot of patience and growth; but I love who their friends are and I love how their friendships seem to take on greater meaning with each passing year.

As younger children, our kids start out simply befriending the children of our friends. At some point they move on and find their own group, albeit the fact that their parents are still best friends. The strongest of adult friendships remain intact because we understand that just because we talk 10 times a week and eat a meal together at least twice a month, it just may not be the right thing for our kids.  And as parents we still love the other children that we might not see as much or who have faded from the kitchen table for a time…but somehow, in some way, they always come back.  They find their way back to my couch.  They eat in my kitchen.  And so it was this weekend with my oldest friend and her family.

We went to high school together, college together, got married together (well, eight weeks apart so she could recover), had our babies together, took vacations and raised our children while living three minutes away from each other for over 20 years.  I helped her bury her mother; she stood by my side reading charts and talking to doctors when my younger son had a terrible accident.  We have never left each other’s side.  While our kids were all friendly and close, at some point our boys chose different paths.  We mourned that loss silently.  We loved them both but knew how genuinely different they were and loved and respected them for being who they were.  They have both given us heavy hearts at times and we have always been able to help each other out through the most challenging of them. 

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So it was this weekend that Michigan played Ohio State in what has become the “BIG GAME” in both our homes.  My friend loves having her two oldest kids at Ohio State and our oldest is a diehard Wolverine.  For the first time in many years, our boys flopped on the couch together, just like they used to, with plates full of food…and enjoyed a crazy afternoon of terrific football, food and friendship. For a brief moment, and I know she felt it too, things were the same as they were 15 years ago.  Everyone kind of found each other on the same page and for a long afternoon we were back where we had started.

But the reality is, the boys are who they are.  While we would love for them to be as close as they were when they were kids, they have their own group of friends and that’s okay.  We both understand that friendships are a journey; some make it and some don’t.  The most important thing is that both are happy and content with who they are and who their friends are.  Their friendships help define them, just like their mothers.

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I know our kids understand and see the love that goes into having a friend for 45 years. The lessons they take away from watching us grow together will linger on long after the football games are over.  We had enough hard laughs and high fives to tide us over until next time…and there’s no doubt that all of our kids took note of the sentimentality of the day.  Long ago it was trips to the zoo, the pumpkin patch, Disney on Ice.  I’ll take an afternoon of football and watching our kids reconnect any day.  Maybe their journey will cause their paths to cross again.  Maybe they’ll keep in touch more than they have.  But it was enough just to see them as they were so many years ago.

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