Unnecessary Friendship
"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." - C.S. Lewis
I think C.S. Lewis is a genius. I've already said this a thousand times on this blog. I've already been chastised for being incredibly trite and unoriginal. In short, I don't care. Knowing how many other people have found him to be a genius doesn't lessen the magnitude of his genius-ness. I particularly love this quote. Because surviving without any value to survival, isn't really surviving at all. See the genius? What's he's really saying is that you can survive without art and philosophy and friendship...but it wouldn't really be living. And how can you survive without really living?
My kid went to bed early....can't you tell? That's the only chance I get to marvel at something other than getting the strawberry jam out of my couch after only one fabric treatment.
Anyway.
Friendship.
Having a kid is like a constant, freaky flashback. It never ceases to amaze me how each time she learns something new, each time she calls my name, touches my face, claps her hands, I relive my own childhood and adolescence. I remember the things I learned, what made me excited, what made me feel safe and I pray and yearn for her to have a happier one, a safer one, a more joyful one than I did. You always want more for your kid, right? No matter how good you had it. The one thing I pray for mostly for her, however, is friendship.
Growing up, I was blessed with the best of friends in each stage of development. They were steadfast and loyal in childhood, understanding and appropriately silly in pre-adolesence and, well, family in my teen years leading up to my young adult stage. Things were never perfect, but they were the people with whom I learned how to communicate-and how not to communicate. They were the people who were honest with me, especially when I didn't want them to be. They were the people who stood by me, who loved and protected me, who yelled at me when I was making stupid decisions, who made me feel as though I belonged somewhere and that I was important and special, even when I so clearly didn't deserve their friendship, or in some instances, their forgiveness.
Things change as you get older, as do friendship dynamics. Some of them are due to hurts caused you, and some are due to hurts you have caused. Whatever the reason, I have never hurt over the loss of friendships as much as I have since I have had my daughter. I watch her play with her little friends at our home group surrounded by our friends who have become family to us, and in the church nursery and my heart cries out,
Please, Lord. Let her be more compassionate than I was. Let her be less prideful. Let her forgive and ask for forgiveness. Let her be less afraid to admit when she was wrong and less afraid to confront someone else who is. Let her be the one who makes others feel valued and treasured. Let her be the one who initiates, who stands up for others, who recognizes rights and wrongs. Let her be better at this than I am.
I am so thankful for the friendships I have had; they shaped who I became as a wife, a teacher and a mother. They prepared me for the deep, loving and honest friendships I have now that I could never do without. I hope as Ellie grows up surrounded by these additional "aunts" and "uncles" she will, in turn, wish to model these friendships in her own life. And since she's way smarter than me already, I think she has a pretty good shot at getting it right the first time.