painting by Andrea Vazquez-Davidson

We hadn’t seen Michael and Mardine in almost 38 years.  We introduced them that many years ago in San Francisco.  Michael didn’t come home with us after that introduction. He stayed with Mardine, and that seemed very right.  They got married before too long and moved far away. Four years later they divorced, and we didn’t see them or hear from them again until two months ago.  Somehow they re-met last year and are back together now, and that seems very right.

This week, they came to Seattle and we met them for dinner. It was such an amazing experience sitting across the table looking at these two people we admired and cared so much about so long ago, and they were the very same. And even though there’s a lifetime of in-between times, we talked and laughed as if no time had passed at all, and asked a hundred questions of each other…and when we said goodbye for now and left them, we felt deeply touched by their friendship and so appreciated them for wanting to share their happiness with us. We are delighted that they found each other again, and us, and we wish them all the joy in the world and many years of sharing that beautiful glowing love we saw in both their faces.  Friendship is amazing, and it is timeless…  Our hearts found their morning and are refreshed!

On Friendship

By Kahlil Gibran (a chapter from his book, The Prophet)

And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.