Best Friends

I've been thinking a lot about what makes a best friend.  I have 3, but I want to focus on just one.  She might hate me for this, but we'll get over it.  We're best friends after all.  We are an unlikely pair.  Some of our deepest held beliefs are opposite.  Where she is extremely quiet most of the time, I am, let's just say not.  Our political standpoints couldn't have been further apart when we met.  So how are we best friends?  Here are my thoughts so far.

1) The history.  With every trial that I face, I go to her.  I just tell her what happened and she knows the rest.  After over 11 years of friendship she knows how everything will affect me.

2) BECAUSE we are so different.  In some ways I can read her mind, as she can mine.  I know her so well that I know how she reacts to just about anything, except when she surprises me.  That happens most times we talk.  How after 11 years can she still stop me dead in my tracks with a new thought?  I don't know, but I do know that listening to her has made me the person I am and continues to make me expand my view.

3) The trust.  This is the biggest one.  I know she loves who I really am.  No one, not even my family, knows me better than her.  She loves the good, the bad and the ugly.  Goodness knows she's seen all of them, and she's still around.  Victor Hugo once wrote: "The supreme happiness of life is in the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves."  I think she loves me for myself, even knowing my weakness.

The best part of a best friend is all these wonderful things I've written about her apply to me too.  The big word for it is "reciprocity."  I have total reciprocity with her.  Life's been throwing me some curveballs lately.  Tonight I told her all about them, and she listened.  Whenever she does that I feel confinent and content.  She gave me new insight, but mostly was just cheered me on.  I meet her needs in a different way sometimes, but I meet the same needs. 

I hope everyone gets a friendship like this.  They are lots and lots of work.  In the beginning a lot of forgiveness and acceptance of differences lays the foundation.  It's not always easy to make the time and to be as tactful as you should be.  At least I had a hard time at first.  But now I have a best friend that is a rock in all I do.  I have someone who supports me through the downs and celebrates with me on the ups, as I do for her.

I know it's late, but I wanted to post something for Memorial Day. I love our country. I love every inspired event that lead to what we have today. The greatest way I could think of observing this holiday was to reread the Gettysburg address. And call to thank some veterans, but as Memorial Day is dedicated to the ones that died I would like to post both Abraham Lincoln's historic and inspired speech and a link to a song that I think captures the spirit of the holiday.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, so founded, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which those who fought here have so nobly advanced. It is rather for us the living to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.

I would like to note that I don't think the fight is finished. This is one of those things we have to do every day. This song has long been a favorite of mine, and I dedicate it to my Grandpa Terry who gave more than I could ever know.

Some Gave All

Oh I see!

Vision correction has always been interesting to me. Well, ever since I needed it. So the other night I took out my contacts and went to put my glasses on. I opened my glasses case but didn't feel my glasses. Bringing the case up to my nose, I realized that yes, they were not in the case. Now normally I could have looked for my glasses, but since I can't see without my glasses, that would be kind of pointless. So I can't see to find my corrective lenses. Is it just me that finds this to be a catch 22? P. S. I did find my glasses after I put my contacts back in.