If this is truly a world of individuals, how can there be a “best”? is the question posed for me in this quote by Hosea Bellou. One definition of individual is “separate and distinct from others of the same kind”.
I admit I did succumb to the BFF world of Facebook, but over the last six months I have learned a truly valuable lesson. How can one pick a “best” friend? That would be like picking a “best” child amongst your children. Every time I went to speak about one of the people that stood by me these last six months, through thick n’ thin, I started to say, “My best friend….” and stopped. Each time I thought of the whole group of people who supported me, I just couldn’t say one was better than the other, and instead wrote “dear friend”. I have such an amazing group of dear friends and family who understood where my hurt was coming from, overlooked my behavior, and were still next to me when the hurricane passed, cheering for my victory over myself. God put each one on my doorstep just when I needed the special thing each one had to offer me out of their own individualness. My friend from Pennsylvania was with me daily in text, my friend from Buffalo NY came out of the blue and spent a week with me, my sister took me for a long lunch when I was in NY one weekend, my husband ended up with an MG and took me on the best rides up into the mountains, my one daughter rode to NY with me and let me talk her ear off, my other daughter sat with a bottle of wine with me and let me talk her ear off, too, my friend Shirley wrote a book that was my Bible through it all, each one of my yoga buddies unknowingly said just the right things after I had driven there in tears or with a heavy heart on a cold, gray morning, my husband listened to me cry on into the wee hours of the morning, never minding giving up his only night at the Cape to relax, and my writing groups and classes led me to write my way out of my mess without ever knowing I was drowning. Now, I ask you, how could I pick the “best” of that group? And, yet, because of the unique things each and every one of them had to offer me at JUST the right moment, here I sit tonight, a happy girl once again.
Just as there is no “best” with God, He loves us all equally, with our own unique faults, as well as gifts, so do I love my dear dear friends and family equally for the gifts each one blesses me with at just the right time when I need it most.
And so, as another day goes by, “It takes a village…” isn’t just about children, and …I have written.
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