Friendship

Friendship, Oleg Zhivetin

Those truly linked don’t need correspondence.
When they meet again after many years apart,
Their friendship is as true as ever.

In the distant past, there was once a young and wealthy statesman who was on a diplomatic mission. Pausing by a river at night, he heard the haunting sounds of a lute. A passionate musician himself, he took up his own lute and eventually found a goatherd sitting on an old ruin. In those days, an aristocrat would not associate with a commoner, but the two men struck up a friendship through their music. Their playing was as smooth and natural as flowing water.

Once a year, the ambassador and the goatherd would renew their friendship. Though they had the chance to play their music with others during the rest of the year, each man declared that he had found his true counterpart.

The ambassador tried for many years to lift the goatherd out of his poverty, but his friend steadfastly refused. He did not want to pollute their friendship with money.

Years later, when the ambassador was gray haired, he went to the appointed spot, but his friend was not there. He tried to play alone, but his melody was forlorn. Finally someone came to tell him that his friend had starved to death during a recent famine. This news made the ambassador despondent. He was caught in the irony of knowing that he had the money to save his friend, and yet he understood the man’s values as well. In sorrow, the ambassador broke his lute. “With my friend gone from the world, who will I play my music for?”

True friendship is a rare harmony.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” — David Tyson Gentry

“But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is going good.”
— Oscar Wilde

“The friendship that can cease has never been real.” — St. Jerome

“It is only the great hearted who can be true friends. The mean and cowardly, Can never know what true friendship means.”
— Charles Kingsley

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

“To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” — Albert Camus

I received a birthday card the other day from Judi, my longest lasting friend. She and I have been friends since the fifth grade, when she moved to Arizona from New York. It’s always tough starting somewhere new, especially as a long-legged, gangly girl. I felt something special with her for some reason and was one of the few who befriended her, and we’ve been friends ever since.

We don’t talk sometimes for months or years at a time, yet always seem to be able to pick up the threads and reconnect with what’s going on in each other’s lives pretty quickly. We’ve been there for each other through the end of her first marriage, the raising of our children, my affair and the subsequent loss of other friends from my life, the death of my parents, the death of her nephew and stepdad, and so many other things. Whatever happens, we always know there is someone who will listen and understand and not judge.

We really only ever had one brief falling out, when I was spending too much time with my first love and not enough time with her. She made me see even then how important balance in life is, and I worked to spend more time with her and less with the boyfriend. These days, we don’t need to spend time with each other to know the threads of our friendship are secure. It is simply there.

I guess she is what Judith Viorst would refer to in her book Necessary Losses as a historical friend, one who understands my history and where I’ve been, as I understand hers. We knew each other way back when, and still love and care for each other. I’m really honored to have her in my life. I hope we will play music together for the rest of our lives together.