A famous quote about friendship, attributed to Edna
Buchanan, is “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” In my case, my
family is my closest and constant friends.
Throughout life, each of us get to know a lot of
people. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my lifetime, it is that no one is
an “average” person. The estimates of how many people this mythical average
person meets in a lifetime can range from 10,000 to 40,000, which is quite a
span. The question is not how many people you meet, but the quality of the
people you meet.
Although we may meet thousands of people, most
people have three to five close friends at any given time. We all know that
people move in and out of our lives, including close friends. In a lifetime,
most of us will have twenty to thirty significant friendships.
When we think about what makes us like our
friends, it is often because we share common interests which change as we age.
One of my best friends in school was the one girl that liked the Beatles as
much as I did. Sharon and I listened to their music, learned everything we
could about them, and went to see their movies.
As a young married woman, Jim became my closest
and best friend. Of course, the fact that I was crazy in love had a little to
do with it.
His family became my family and my sister-in-law
Dinah became my friend. We both had young kids, liked to go to garage sales,
and spent a lot of time together. Dinah pointed out two elderly ladies walking
arm-in-arm down the sidewalk. “That will be us someday,” she said.
When Jim developed dementia, I became involved
with the Alzheimer’s Association. In 2000, I went to my first Alzheimer’s forum
in DC where I met a lot of like-minded people with common goals. I made
additional friends, but I forged a special friendship with Jane, Sarah, and
Kathy. Our friendships were not defined by space or distance. We considered
ourselves sisters of the heart.
My twentieth Alzheimer’s Advocacy Forum would have
been in 2020, but the meeting was cancelled due to Covid. I have not been able
to attend since then, but my three friends still hold a special place in my
heart and always will.
I made many
other friends during my volunteer work with Alzheimer’s, at work, church, in
writers guild, Sedalia Business Women, reconnecting with high school friends
for monthly lunches, through playing music, through extended family, and random
encounters. I believe the “average” number of friends isn’t even close.
Friends are the people that we care about whether
or not they are present, and we mourn their loss when they are no longer a part
of our lives. They are the ones we think about at random moments and remember
the good times, or the sad times. Friends
are the people we worry about when they are going through difficult times.
The best thing about my good friends is they like
me for who I am. I don’t have to pretend to be anything other than myself, and
they don’t have to pretend either. We may not agree on everything, but with
mutual respect and kindness, it doesn’t really matter.
My friends are my family, and family is my friends.
Copyright © May 2026 by L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
#ENDALZ