Friendship

When I started this blog my intent had been to be professional and offer useful coaching information. Over the last month as I have engaged in the 31 day blogging challenge I have found it more difficult to maintain the “professional” attitude. Perhaps, blogging demands a personal honesty, a need to show up that I had not counted upon. At any rate, today’s blog will be quite personal.

My best friend Daphne, died last week. I still find it hard to write that and to accept that. We became friends in the mid 1980’s. It was an unlikely friendship, she was nine years older than me, more conventional and a bit on the introverted side. I was louder and more “in your face”. Despite that we found  a common ground in wanting to improve ourselves and so we both took two years of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) training.

She was there for me when my twelve year relationship broke up, I was there for her when her relationship ended. We traveled together, we shopped together, we cooked together. The list goes on. She was a best friend in all the ways you could want one and now, that is all over.

Over the last six years, her health began to fail as did her mental acuity. That was a huge shock as she was one of the smartest women I knew, and for her to lose that was devastating. Ultimately she ended up in long term care, unhappy and often slightly delusional. It was a challenge to visit her yet every now and then she would pop out of the mental fog and be herself for a brief period of time.

The last time I saw her was about a month before she died. I stopped by with a a take out bag of burgers, fries and a coke. Her eyes lit up and for most of an hour we had a good conversation. It’s a good memory to have.

After I heard the news of her death I was talking to another friend and she said to me “Our society does not recognize the importance of friends. We get time off for a death in the family and are lucky to even get the time for the funeral off.” Then she added “friends are the family we chose” And that is certainly true of my friend Daphne.

All of which leads me to the place of offering a suggestion. If you have good friends and haven’t been in touch or told them how grateful you are to have them in your life – do it now. Because you never really know how long you have with anyone and truly,  friends deserve your attention.