From the Heart
….. I sat on the porch overlooking a beautiful
mountain lake on a summer day, enjoying a glass of wine with my
Mom. Older than me, mother of four, experienced and wise.
“Get yourself some girlfriends,” she advised, swirling the wine in
her glass. “You are going to need girlfriends. Go places with them,
do things with them.”
What a funny piece of advice, I thought.
Hadn’t I just gotten married? Hadn’t I just joined the
couple-world? I was a married
woman, for goodness sake, not a young girl
who needed girlfriends. But I listened to my Mom and I got back in
touch with my old girlfriends of years long gone. As the years
tumbled by, one after another, gradually I came to understand that
Mom knew what she was talking about.
Here is what I know about them:
Girlfriends bring casseroles and scrub your
bathroom when you are sick.
Girlfriends keep your children and keep your
secrets.
Girlfriends give advice when you ask for it.
Sometimes you take it, sometimes you don’t.
Girlfriends don’t always tell you that
you’re right, but they’re usually honest.
Girlfriends still love you, even when they
don’t agree with your choices.
Girlfriends might send you a birthday card,
but they might not. It does not matter in the least.
Girlfriends laugh with you, and you don’t
need canned jokes to start the laughter.
Girlfriends pull you out of jams.
Girlfriends don’t keep a calendar that lets
them know who hosted the other last.
Girlfriends will give a party for your son
or daughter when they get married or have a baby, in whichever
order that comes!
And girlfriends are there for you, in an
instant and truly, when the hard times come.
Girlfriends listen when you lose a job or a
husband.
Girlfriends listen when your children break
your heart.
Girlfriends listen when your parents minds
and bodies fail.
My girlfriends bless my life. Once we were
young, with no idea of the incredible joys or the incredible
sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each
other.
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as
well dance.
Cheers!
Vidya
