In search of friends

My mother is a wonderful example of enduring and ongoing friendship. She is turning 93 this month and lives in an independent/assisted living community. She has no major health problems and is as sharp as ever. When she complains about things, always mildly, it's often about the food, but once she said sadly to me that her friends were all dying. It's true - they're all in their 90s. But my mom has the wonderful gift and desire to keep making new friends, even though she knows she may lose them.

I have been thinking a lot about friendship lately because one long-time friendship seems to have run its course. My husband and I have been friends with another couple for decades. We enjoy music together, we eat out, we talk about our kids... But somewhere along the way there has been a shift, so subtle that we didn't notice it for a while. Our friends appear to need to put us down continually. We tell them some wonderful news, and one or the other of them pops the happy balloon with a negative comment.

"My niece was offered three reporting jobs right out of college!" "[disparaging snort] Well, you know newspapers are dying."

Said to me: "Joe and Sue told us they went to your concert. They said it was awful."

It's a constant barrage. Neither of us can figure out why they have started treating us like this. I started thinking about our long friendship and I realized that it has devolved into a sort of friendship of convenience. If we're going to the same concert, we eat out together beforehand. We invited each other to life events. Other than that, we don't interact. And now, we don't want to.

So this has led us to thinking about forming some new friendships. It's not that easy once you are out of school, and especially if you are retired, like my husband. It's scary, too. What if the person you'd like to know better turns down your invitations?

My mother had some wonderful almost life-long friends. She met her best friend Lorraine in college. They got their first teaching jobs together, in the same high school. When they both married, they ended up in different parts of the country, but they always kept in touch. My parents asked Lorraine and Ray to be my brother's godparents. When my parents retired to Minnesota, they were all back in the same area and Lorraine and Ray chose the same assisted living community as my mother. Lorraine passed away and several years later Ray did also. Their passing was a huge loss for my mother. But she continues to reach out and make new friends.

I have long-time friends as well - a few from high school, more from college, scattered all over the country. I treasure those friends, but we also need the friends who we can go out to dinner with, see a movie, just sit and chat. And so, we are reaching out and hoping to find more people to add to our lives. Thanks Mom, for the great example.

Gratitude

This week I am feeling grateful. Last week one of my colleagues, who is also my friend, was taking his daughter on a college visit out of state. They were in a horrible car accident on Wednesday. The driver behind them didn't slow down in a construction zone and plowed into the back of their car, pushing them into the car in front of them. My friend was airlifted out to the hospital. His daughter was banged up, but had no serious injuries, though I'm sure it was pretty terrifying for her.

My friend is married to my teaching partner, who got the call at school from the hospital. She dropped everything and headed for the airport.

He was in the ICU with multiple injuries for a couple of days, and then was released from the hospital and flew home on Saturday, amazingly. He is now recovering at home, and will probably be there for a few weeks. He's been sending cheerful emails, including mentioning that he'd always wondered what it would be like to be airlifted, and now he knows!

My teaching partner sent a photo of the car, which had been towed away. It looked more like a ball of metal than a car.

It's a reminder when terrible things happen - a reminder of how important our friends are to us, and how much we care. It's also a reminder that life can change in an instant.

So I am very grateful that my friends are back with us.

Late Night Adventure, tame variety

One of the pleasures of being on spring break is having no schedule to stick to. There are only a few times this week that I need to be somewhere at a particular time. Last night was one of those times - I had an orchestra rehearsal from 7:30 to 10:00. My husband is not playing this concert (coming up in April), so he decided to go downtown (Chicago) to see a concert. He asked on Facebook if anyone wanted to go with him. Facebook can be so useful! And a young friend of ours said he wanted to go.

They went off to catch the train to Chicago and I drove in the opposite direction to my rehearsal. After two and a half hours of Beethoven I arrived home at 10:30. This is normally after my bedtime. But the two of them were sitting at the kitchen table, eating cookies and talking about music, so I joined them. We talked about the concert they saw (mixed reviews), Robert's new job which starts new week, his plans for the future, orchestras, conductors, concerts, and recordings old and new. We talked about people we know in common and what we're all doing this summer.

By then it was 1:00 am. We still hadn't run out of things to talk about, but it was definitely time to go to bed.

And since it is spring break, I slept in this morning!