We live in an age when the very word
friend has become minimalized and
even turned into a verb by the social media world. (One place incidentally
where it is possible even to unfriend
somebody!) Perhaps we should add a special symbol to the spelling to indicate
its old fashion meaning (FRIEND ♥) for instance? In my favorite dictionary I note such
modifying words as trust, loyal and sympathy coming into play when defining
the word. I would add what for me is the most cherished quality of all: enduring.
Someone has facetiously but wisely
said that a friend is someone you can call up at 2:30 in the morning and they
won’t be mad. My wife has such a friend; a neighbor who was one of the first
Utahans to welcome us to the state, and to our rather remote alpine community
47 years ago. In fact at the time we wouldn’t have used the word community, other than in jest. The
heavily-wooded mountainous enclave was home to several dozen families intent on
getting away from the valley-loving “herd” to a place where no one was apt to
find them. (Yes, I suppose we weren’t all that different.) From the beginning
Linda was different. She really cared
about people. One-on-one. Her kind of friendship was decidedly not for public
show or for self-gratification; it was real. And unstinting. All these years
later, though addresses and family settings have changed, the friendship and
the connection it reflects has not. Every so many weeks the phone will ring,
and it’s Linda checking up on us or setting a date for a luncheon get-together.
Her cheerful happy presence is unchanging and her sincere interest in her
friends unwavering.
Similarly, I have a friend who lives
three thousand miles away and whom, until a Vermont visit in 2013, I hadn’t
seen in person for more than fifty years. The very digital world about which I
so often speak scornfully brought about a reconnection about 15 years ago,
since which discovery we chat daily, and find our lives have moved in
near-parallel courses. We are so much alike, my son says of us “two brothers
with different mothers”. Both survivors of the Korean War and proud veterans, I
am as sure as I have ever been that in a situation such as we are both familiar
with, one would as easily take a grenade for the other today. (See John 15: 13)
When my father went to war in 1917
every man in the 20th Company fifth U.S. Marine Regiment came from
the same two Washington State counties. Most had gone to school with and known
each other before being recruited. My Uncle Oscar Cooper had seen his twin
brother hit and fall, passing him by in the costly attack on a copse of trees
known as Belleau Wood. Days would pass before he would learn my Dad’s fate. It
was a time when every bullet or mortar round took or threatened someone you had
wrestled or played sports with a year or two previous to the sound of battle.
Close personal connections were also a casualty of war and sometimes the most
painful. Forty years later my Father could recite those names as if written in
old slanted cursive in his brain.
I have learned over a lifetime that
friendship is an active word, and not one to be taken for granted. I have
worked to rekindle flagging relationships and strengthen others. In the last
year I have added several esteemed new ones to the list and used the occasion
to express my deep appreciation to
individuals who in a special way have sweetened my life, a couple of whom I now
communicate with monthly or even weekly. It has been prophetically said that
while many people enter, pass through, and leave our lives without making
waves, there are others who leave their footprints on our heart. These I have
learned to keep on the front burner of my “Thank You” priority list. The chance
to do so may pass before we know it.
A British anthropologist and
psychologist named Robin Dunbar has completed an extraordinary study which
indicates that the numerical capacity of most humans makes it possible for an
individual to maintain a current social group of about 150 total people; of close friends about 50. That brings Dunbar to what I think of as
the magic core of his hierarchy. He says that of true intimates we may well have only about 15, with a close support
group of 5.
I
don’t know if Dunbar has it right, but I do know that friends and friendship
are worth more than gold.
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