Old Friends
Old Friends
Words & music by Paul Simon
Old friends,
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends.
Dyer’s Chamomile in our garden
When I was a teenager, I enjoyed the music of “Simon and Garfunkel,” including the lyrics above that are only part of a song. Old friends are like “bookends.” They hold each other up and in high regard. They remember “when.” They forgive the extra pounds, the gray hair, and other physical changes that TIME wreaks on our bodies.
For the past 43 or 44 years, I have wondered whatever happened to a good friend from Junior High School. We grew up in the same (small) town, and went to different high schools. Eventually, we lost track of each other. I went away to the university, and then lived in Spain, California and Arizona. After a time, I returned to my home state of New Hampshire. Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz” was right, “There is no place like home.”
Just about a week ago, I was looking through the University of New Hampshire Magazine and found his name there, in a scientific article. I sent him a note, we became Facebook friends, and today, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting with him in his home.
There is something comforting about knowing people who remember your family and other people from the past … a past that seems a lifetime ago because it is. We had a lot of catching up to do.
I hope we will do some more visiting. In seeing him again, I realized the qualities that attracted me to him: his keen and inquiring mind, his love of nature, and the aura of peace that seems to surround him. Anyone would be lucky to be his friend.
We do have something in common now that we did not have when we were twelve or fourteen. We both have life-threatening conditions.
When that is the case, every new day dawning is a blessing. Like me, he is strong of spirit and still engaged in learning! To see him again just felt like the right thing to do. I feel happy tonight and at peace. I feel that I’ve come full circle, and that this meeting with David was orchestrated by a Higher Being. How else could it be explained?
Friends make us more than we are, and lift us up when the World lets us down. The point of understanding is that, given a chance, the World will always let us down.
After driving through the pouring rain, I came home to another “friend” who had baked a cake for us while I was gone. People have various ways of showing love, and baking and cooking are certainly two ways. That same guy made homemade Squash Soup and Cranberry Biscuits for lunch, and did all the dishes!.
In addition, a beautiful greeting card was waiting in today’s mail from another friend. How did I ever get so lucky to have so many friends? I am blessed with friends. May the “Light of the World” shine on them. The love one gives is commensurate to the love one reaps.
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
