Friendship
Happy Fourth of July 2011! Independence Day this year made me reflect on the freedom, and value, of friendship. "Make new friends, but keep the old; one's silver and the others are gold." These are the words to a song learned at Central Avenue Elementary school in 1971, the year my thirty five year old mom received her early death sentence; melanoma in her lymph system. I was in 3rd grade. My mom encouraged me to build lasting friendships. She had a very loving heart and I sensed the compassion she had for my young friends. It made it natural for me to like them. Perhaps she encouraged me to make friends because she anticipated our family might, like others who experience the death of a young parent, implode after her death, leaving me and my siblings and our family on separate islands. Friends can't replace family, but good friends can fill the lost family void. "A person someone is fond of and knows well", according to Webster's Dictionary, is