"New friends are silver, but old friends are gold." --Written August 17th, 2007

I was standing on the porch waving good-bye to my friend Deb and her husband as they drove off after a short visit last night. Texas is so far away and the visits are too short. As I was waving I felt my eyes tear up. But I held it back. I was determined to hold it back standing there by myself on the porch. I was taken back to my childhood and its vulnerability along with the feeling of abandonment that vexed me as I would watch her drive away. In that moment my childhood thinking returned and I told myself it would be too long before I get to spend time with her again, that I wasn't ready for her to leave. I never was. When I was younger it was the distance between Sharpsburg and Cincinnati. Now, on my front porch my tears were not permitted as I heard my mother's voice from way back as if it were just spoken now some 30 years later. "If I catch you crying anymore about her leaving I won't let her come back." And so I cut the tears and packed up my feelings in the way back place in my heart. But this morning, I got them back out again and reassured myself it's okay to cry. It's okay to love someone so much that you don't want them to leave. It's okay to have such a connection with a friend and not want miles to separate you. It's okay to love someone so much that your heart feels heavy when you think of living life without them. It's okay. It's okay to have someone who believes in you, shows appreciation for you, encourages you and wants your dreams to come true just as much as you do. I have that in my friend, Deb, and so much more. She met me in 1970…when I was five. She's loved me every since. I have been through periods of where I felt like she was sometimes a mother figure, a sister or a friend. And she fills those roles at different times, depending on the circumstances, without compliant, and with love gleaming in her eyes. And I don't have to be sad because with each visit, brief as they may have been here and there throughout the past 37 years, our friendship gets stronger and stronger. She has proven to me, that "a friend loveth at all times." That she is a constant in my life. And it's okay to never want to be without my friend.